Grade 6, Yeoville Community School
Blanche was a ten-year old girl who lived with her parents and two siblings in Johannesburg, a city in Gauteng. She was a girl with big dreams and thoughts.
Blanche was very smart but a bit plump. She wanted to play netball for the school team but she was always criticised about how plump she was.
Blanche was also not good at Maths even though she wanted to become an astronomer. Her parents, teachers and friends all knew that she was going to fail Maths. This made her feel self-conscious and so she did fail Maths at the end of the year. Maths is a major subject at school and if you fail it, you fail the grade and so she did. Blanche was shattered and ashamed of herself and that year she did not even play netball for the school team.
The next year she repeated the grade and was eleven in Grade 5. Her teachers were very disappointed in her. They thought she would get 50% in Maths. Blanche didn’t care what people thought or said about her, all she wanted was to pass Maths and play netball for the school team.
That was her new year’s resolution. In Term 1, they wrote a Maths test that was out of 50. She got 25 out of 50 and she was discouraged by her poor results. That was not enough to pull her down. She just kept saying, “I will never give up.” This helped her. At the end of Term 1, they had another Maths test which was also out of 50 and she got 45. Her teachers and her parents were very proud of her. After practising Maths for a while, she became very good and this made her more self-confident because, “if you believe in yourself and what you can do, anything is possible.”
In Term 2, the netball season began and Blanche was nervous. She didn’t want to give up, so after school she went to the netball court where she saw the other girls. “What are you doing, Fatty?” asked Nonhle in a mean way. “I am here to practise for the upcoming match,” replied Blanche.
“Ha, ha, ha, you play netball! You can’t even run!” said Maria. “Ha, ha, ha,” they all laughed.
“I know I can’t run but that won’t make me quit, all I know is that we will play the match and we will win and I will be rewarded as team captain,” shouted Blanche as she walked away. All the girls remained quiet.
“Okay, guys, this is Blanche and she will be joining our team this year so let us treat her with respect because she will be the goal scorer,” announced coach Junior. “Let us play,” he shouted.
After the match, all the other girls apologised to her and Blanche forgave them. A week later Blanche’s team went and played netball at a school called Observatory Primary School. During the game Blanche scored 9 goals and Observatory scored 4 goals. Blanche’s team won and she did indeed become team captain and at the end of the year she got an award.