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Student Tomi longlisted for National GSA Senior Writing Award (Year 10-13) |
M5 student Tomi B was long listed for the GSA Senior Writing Award in the Year 10-13 category.
Her entry is showcased on the GSA website here.
The judge, Hannah Barnes, Associate Editor at The New Statesman, longlisted just six entries in the Year 10-13 category.
Hannah Barnes commented upon judging the St Swithun’s entries, “The standard of writing was extremely high…students who submitted their entries should be extremely proud of this achievement.”
Competing against students from girls’ schools nationally, Tomi’s piece was revered by the judge. Regarding the writing, Hannah said, “You write so well, drawing the reader in. I found myself rooting for you, but not knowing what was going to happen. As I read you describe the teacher’s radiant smile and response, I cheered! Please keep writing – anyone who can deliver a line as beautiful as your final one is too good to stop.”
English lessons at St Swithun’s are spaces for exploration, reflection and collaboration. At the heart of everything we do is a desire to inspire young women to see reading, writing and discussing as the keys to the kingdom of imagination and empowerment.
Read Tomi’s entry, The Cap That Couldn't Stretch, below:
The swimming cap was too tight. My head was burning ….
The staggering smell of the pool water stung my nose while I fumbled with the slippery orange cap that kept snapping on my hair. Panicked and hysterical as I struggled to pull the petite swimming cap over my head, I froze — out of breath. Warily, I scanned the changing room — empty. The silence was deafening; no one else was in the changing room. I was alone.
As the daunting realisation crept over, I spun towards the clock, hoping, begging, despairing that I wasn’t late for the swimming lesson. Wide-eyed and stunned, I bolted out of the changing room, looking thoroughly dishevelled, an orange swim cap plopped on top of my Afro, and dashed to the pool side.
‘Finally, you’ve decided to arrive!’ sighed the teacher, clearly exasperated. Unsettled and flustered, I reached for my swim cap, trying to wrestle it over my hair—stretching, yanking forcefully shoving over my Afro, while my teacher droned on about … a warm-up game? Or diving? I couldn’t really tell at that point. My mind was riveted to the small orange piece of rubber.
SNAP!
A dread washed over me. I slipped the destroyed swim cap off my hair and held it limp in my hands. Without a swim cap, I was banned from joining the swimming lesson.
Dragging myself out of that painfully lonely lesson, I cursed my Afro for being the reason I was excluded. Surely it wasn’t fair that I couldn’t participate because my natural hair was too big? Swimming without a cap in the school pool was regarded as unhygienic, unhealthy, and unsafe. Weeks passed with those recurring dreadful lessons, as I became complacent with standing on the side; it was quite boring. Surprisingly, I became acutely aware that other girls with flamboyant hairstyles—like mine—also loathed swimming lessons. What began as a simple embarrassment slowly festered into a deep-rooted resentment toward the rule that barred me from the water and left me deserted at the poolside, not by choice, but by exclusion. This was wrong!
Girls like me were excluded. Girls like me were embarrassed. Girls like me were fed up.
Tired of the endless apathy I experienced — sitting, standing, slouching on pool side -- my thoughts drifted, searching for a solution to reclaim the lost time. Was there a way possible for girls with large hair, to access bigger swimming caps?
At first, I dismissed the idea of asking for bigger swimming caps to be sold in our school uniform shop. The thought of having to approach the intimidating sports teachers about it was... something I wasn’t eager to do. But as the recurring, painful swimming lessons approached, the idea of asking for the larger caps didn’t seem as daunting anymore. I wanted to participate. I wanted to enjoy the pool with my friends. I wanted to swim.
So, with a surge of new-founded determination, I sauntered to the teacher on poolside. The closer I got to her, the more my thoughts scrambled, uncertain about what I was going to say. Without a warning the teacher was standing directly in front me— towering over with her piercing eyes locked on me while tapping her foot slowly and menacingly. With a faint quiver in my voice, I began to ramble discursively about swimming caps, not about the possibility of having bigger ones, just random facts about them.
As expected, she looked away, uninterested—at that moment, I knew that I had to be concise and cease my rambling. It was now or never!
'Could the school consider buying larger swimming caps... especially for girls with considerably big hairstyles?' I blurted out. Right then, the teacher spun around, with softened eyes and a look of sympathy. For a slight uncomfortable moment, she stared at me, while the voice in my head was pleading for me to run away or perhaps dive into the pool to save myself from further embarrassment.
A radiant smile suddenly lit up her face as she exclaimed, ’Of course, we can. Perhaps we could invest in Soul caps for girls with large hair’ She explained Soul caps were oversized swimming caps designed for long, voluminous and naturally textured hair styles like afros, dreadlocks, and braids— and would be especially perfect for me.
In the moment, a wave of relief washed over me — no longer would I watch the dreadful minutes creep along second by second on the side-lines — I was ready to dive in — and also girls with coils, curls or cornrows, long exiled to the poolside, were finally welcomed into the water.