VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Shaped by play
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: From childhood all the way to adulthood, the concept of play or playing, is perceived in many different ways.…
From childhood all the way to adulthood, the concept of play or playing, is perceived in many different ways. Seeing young children play is viewed as a form of learning and engagement into the beginning chapters of their life. However, as we grow older in age and take on more responsibilities, the view of play in adult life is often criticised. When we are young life is simple. We lack any responsibilities and social pressures from others and rather encouraged to play. In later years it is the opposite and frequently play is misunderstood for adults despite its benefits of learning and connecting.
In childhood play is seen as productive, even encouraged by adults even if it is unstructured. In kindergarten most of learning it is made up primarily of play besides occasional ‘traditional’ learning such as writing or reading. This is because young kids learn by doing before being told what to do. Through games and activities such as make-believe, dress-ups and the playground, young kids instantly figure out how to interact with other kids, be experimental and creative and learn that actions can create consequences. Play creates a space where understanding is built through actions and not instructions which significantly differs with age.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The stimulus is "Peace means…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: Peace begins with us Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I just want to begin with extending my gratitude to you…
Peace begins with us
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I just want to begin with extending my gratitude to you all for coming. I know it's not easy for you hard working parents in the school board to be able to come meet at such short notice. I know it may seem strange to see a teenager in your board meeting but believe me when I say, the matter we will discuss is of utmost importance to all demographics.
For those that don't know me, my name is Arsene Lecomb and I am your school captain for our once esteemed Louisiana State Luther Secondary College. As being a captain of a school, it is my duty to ensure that students feel stable in their education and that students and teachers alike are able to coexist in peaceful harmony in an environment that doesn't discriminate. Unfortunately, parents, drawing from the recent school shooting done by some group of our African-American students in this passing month, it seems as though I haven't been able to fulfill my job requirements to its highest standards. And after conversing with the violent perpetrators, it appears as though I am not the only one who hasn't been able to display characteristics of love and protection for these students. These young children have repeatedly claimed they had experienced injustice within the school, whether that be through a fellow student excluding them from games due to their skin colour, or teacher repeatedly ignoring this student whilst engaging with students of non-African descent. These harsh actions have been occurring to dozens of our students, and now, as we can see from their actions last week, they finally down to do something about it. These hurt young oppressed individuals relised that they have gone through enough and now the world was going to face the consequences of their actions. Someone had to know how it felt to be the underdog.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: protest frameworks
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The Echo of the Drum A small blue paper star sits on the passenger seat of my car. I walk the same street…
The Echo of the Drum
A small blue paper star sits on the passenger seat of my car.
I walk the same street every evening now. Minneapolis looks calmer these days. Storefronts repaired. Windows replaced. Pavements scrubbed clean. From a distance, it is almost possible to believe nothing happened here. But cities remember. That is why I slow down when I reach the statue near the corner, a raised bronze fist darkened by weather and time. I have walked past it countless times, usually a little quicker than necessary. Tonight, I stop.
The fist reminds me of a drum. That is what the protests sounded like. A steady beat travelling through the streets, beginning quietly before growing louder, impossible to ignore. I stare at the statue, and suddenly, I am back there again.
The noise came before the crowd. “No justice! No peace!” The chants echoed between buildings as people gathered, carrying signs above their heads. Mothers stood beside children, students linked arms, and elderly protesters held cardboard messages asking for justice. Some shouted. Others simply watched. All had come because they believed something needed to change. I stood opposite them in uniform, helmet secured, shield raised. My orders were clear. Maintain the line. Prevent disorder. Restore control. I told myself that my job was to keep everyone safe. It was easier to believe that when I saw a crowd instead of the individuals standing within it.
Then a bottle struck the pavement near the front. A man pushed through the crowd, shouting angrily, while others turned and called for him to stop. My colleagues tightened their formation. A voice crackled through my radio. “Move forward. Push them back.” The crowd had not acted as one. Some were angry; others were frightened. Many simply held their signs. Yet we advanced as though every person before us posed the same threat.
A woman near the front raised her cardboard sign above her head. “Am I next?” it read. Her arms trembled, but she refused to lower it. I stepped forward with the others. My shield struck her, hard enough to knock her off balance. I had not intended to hurt her. But intention does not erase consequence. Her sign fell to the ground, and for a moment, I saw her clearly: not an enemy, but someone who had come to ask a question and had been answered with force. The chants fractured into shouting. People pushed back as officers advanced. The rhythm broke.
Later, the headlines would say violence had erupted across Minneapolis, as though it had appeared from nowhere. The bottle mattered. Those who deliberately endangered others were responsible for their actions. But the bottle was not the whole story. Neither was the line of officers advancing towards people demanding justice. I had believed that following orders meant preventing harm. That day, I began to understand that obedience could also allow it.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest Piece
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: Investigative Essay intended for Academic audiences. Scholarly Piece for online upload. On April 26, 1986,…
Investigative Essay intended for Academic audiences.
Scholarly Piece for online upload.
On April 26, 1986, reactor four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded during a routine safety test that had been conducted. The explosion released radioactive material across Europe, contaminating millions of acres, rendering an exclusion zone of over 4,000 square kilometres uninhabitable, and precipitating the evacuation of approximately 350,000 people. Twenty-eight workers died from acute radiation syndrome within weeks. Thousands of thyroid cancers would follow in subsequent years, predominantly in children. The Soviet government, tethered to a culture of institutional secrecy antithetical to what Glasnost Gorbachev had so recently promised, initially dismissed international reporting on the disaster as, in Gorbachev's own words, a "highly immoral campaign." Official acknowledgement arrived only after radiation alarms activated at a nuclear plant in Sweden, more than 1,000 kilometres away. That distance, the undeniable reach of what had been concealed, became the disaster's most politically destabilising quality. Chernobyl did not stay within the Soviet borders, and this leak stripped institutional authority of its most relied-upon instrument, the capacity to control the narrative. The accident, as Gorbachev later reflected, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It exposed the detrimental interchange of secrecy and failure, and in doing so, empowered the global anti-nuclear movement with an image of institutional incompetence that no amount of reassurance could resolve.
The political consequences were immediate and subsequent in the months following, April 1986, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched through Rome against Italy's nuclear program, one that would be dismantled entirely in the years following. Austria, which had already rejected the activation of its sole nuclear plant in a 1978 referendum, now found that rejection vindicated through its civilians. Switzerland imposed a ten-year halt on new reactor construction. The International Atomic Energy Agency had projected, as recently as 1975, that global nuclear capacity would reach between 3,600 and 5,300 gigawatts by the turn of the millennium. By 2017, actual worldwide capacity stood at 392 gigawatts, a minute number of the anticipated figure, the deficit a monument to accumulated public opposition through the protests. Chernobyl demonstrated that protest against nuclear energy was not merely ideological but visceral, grounded in a reality of dangerous widespread contamination, the reality of governments that lied, in the ecological reality of forests that are poisoned for decades. The movement it galvanised was one in which fear had become realised, its own form of evidence. Twenty-five years later, the world had forgotten somewhat. Nuclear power had undergone a quiet rehabilitation in the early 2000s, reframed as a low emissions alternative in the age of climate change. New plants were under consideration met with public opposition, while persistent, had softened into the darkness, the risk was imaginary at this point. The reactors modern, and the Soviet Union long dissolved and plans of nuclear energy refurbished.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Journey ends I chose Stimulus 2 iwhich…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: Journey’s end “If the finish line was already bought and paid for before a single breath was drawn, is this…
Journey’s end
“If the finish line was already bought and paid for before a single breath was drawn, is this journey’s end truly theirs to write?” Staring at the gift-horse in the mouth feels ungrateful, crushed by the burden of prizes unsought and unearned. The boy wonders, in the hollow hours of the morning, if it is normal to be irritated by the very walls stenciled with the parody of an achieving young man. To find the air you breathe is expensive, like the sterile, recycled oxygen of a high-end hotel – crisp, cool and smelling vaguely of someone else’s paycheck.
Beneath the blue-white glow of the LED downlight, a lone figure sits hunched over an IKEA desk , the price tag, roughly removed leaving behind the clinging piece of paper – a vulture picking on the marrow of a dream he wasn't even a part of. To him the room, the house, was a testament to doing “better”, a hollowed-out structure designed to keep the world from screaming.
Within the silence, a hill of mirrors, an endless, shimmering expanse of polished tiles, wrought in the burning heat of caustic lye and industrial cleaner. A mother who'd wake before the hums of the bird to prepare lunch, a mother who'd anxiously stand at the doorstep with a towel in her hand waiting on a rainy day. A woman who did not follow the tragic migrant folklore, someone who didn't have to experience the callouses on her knees scouring the earth until her reflection was bright enough to cover her labor. And yet she remained humble, remained smart, too smart, she knew at that time what the people needed the most and used it to build her business. She helped students who wanted to escape with Visa paperworks and formalities. Wherever you go, everyone seems to know her, or at least be familiar with what she’s accomplished. Even so, her biggest struggle wasn't sending students with opportunity, it was putting herself face to face with that same chance she gives others. Balancing the leaden weight of a foreign textbook on one hand and the unborn pulse of new life on the other. The difference is; she fought for it.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest title: "Its time"
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Title: “Its time” Good morning everyone, My name is Amanda Smith and I am one of the student representatives…
Title: “Its time”
Good morning everyone,
My name is Amanda Smith and I am one of the student representatives for my school, Heartleigh High. Today I stand in front of you all in this debate to discuss the daily struggles of sexism against women in our society. While society prides itself on progressive values, sexism remains an insidious presence, deeply embedded within our institutional structures and social hierarchies. Women are continuously being discounted, underappreciated and criticised on the basis of gender rather than ability and knowledge. The effects are ongoing till this day, and it is incredibly tragic to first hand witness the impact of this issue. Such outdated ideology is sometimes hidden behind tradition,culture and professionalism, but it has one purpose, to keep women fro achieving the same power and respect as men. History plays a significant role such as the women’s suffrage movement. Power is at the bottom of this. When men occupy positions such as business men or political leaders, they make the rules whereas women don’t receive the same respect, constantly belittles and unseen like the black sheep form all the white. Such power imbalance structures are unethical, they keep the effects of sexism invisible, making it harder to destroy. I stand before you to step up for women and demand change, it’s time to put a stop to this issue now.
Perhaps the finest illustrations of sexism can be seen in the double standards that continue to exist in everyday life. We see a persistent gender dichotomy in how leadership is perceived. A man’s assertiveness is celebrated as initiative, yet when a woman mirrors that same confidence, she is marginalised with labels such as “bossy” or “hysterical”. These double standards reflect in schools too, girls are repeatedly told to cover up because their clothing is distracting. Distracting to who? Rather than teaching boys to value girls, we are consistently shamed for being in our own bodies. These rules are not to ensure learning, they teach girls to be silent, obedient and to take up less space whilst apologise for simply being. In this day and age, its ridiculous how past historical rules are still alive today.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The Choice
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin. The tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds…
A thick layer of grey dust stuck to my skin.
The tarpaulin covers, makeshift tin stores, and endless crowds of sweat and grime. My mother reminded me to cover my mouth, the thin scarf doing little to block the air. Below us were rows and rows of every type of vegetable I’d never seen. Buckets of small jumping frogs, crabs and an odd collection of bugs. My brows furrowed, not in judgement but in contemplation. Their shouts echoed, every seller insisting we buy their fresh tomatoes or bright green okras. My mother’s familiar voice mingled with theirs — bidding, scoffing, giving in, or winning.
“This is how I always used to do it” she was proudly holding the bag of 30-rupee beans. We only saved 20 rupees. It was equivalent to saving 4c per litre at our local petrol station, that;s how I made sense of it. To her, this was simply coming back. To me, this was treading around a world that I’d never lived in before.
The night before, she’d told me we’d all have to wake up early for the morning market. She said all the cheapest and freshest foods would be gone by 9 am. Dragging myself into my uncle’s car, we drove to the main ‘city’. I groaned as usual. I didn’t choose to move around crowds of many, squeezing my way through tight alleys and walkways. Avoiding puddles with strange smells, asking a store owner where the vegetable section was. I complained on the car ride back. I hadn't come all the way back home just to spend my days buying all the different, exotic foods my mum had been craving for 13 years. I didn’t understand that to her, to my parents, it was like being starved of the beach for that many years — an impossible feat for most Aussies. A choice they had made for me.
All I wanted, all I’d thought this would be, was going around to all the aunties, uncles and cousins. Given meals, gifts and chatting by the fire till the crickets awoke. Shopping for clothes in all the different stores, trying the street food and visiting the beautiful mountain-sides. My expectations hadn’t been met yet, and I felt like my parents were being selfish.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title: What matters most Stimulus: “Be…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 82.5%: You're not supposed to matter that much. Chipped mirrors, fluorescent lights and cubicle doors that don’t…
You're not supposed to matter that much. Chipped mirrors, fluorescent lights and cubicle doors that don’t quite lock properly, yet you carry the girls who can no longer carry the weight of the world in their chests.
You remember this one girl. You first met her in year 10. She was one of the ‘bus girls,’ the early arrivals with no place else to go. She would come too early and plop down on your cold tiles, while music that held too much emotion filled her ears. Sometimes she would cry, and sometimes she would sing along to whatever she was listening to, and you would hold her all the same.
The ‘loud’ ones would come in around 15 minutes later, spraying too much perfume, gossiping as if your cold tiles aren't listening, and fixing their hair and makeup before the bell demanded their presence somewhere else in the school.
But you noticed the ‘bus girl’ more. She would wait for them to leave, feet up on your closed toilet lid so as to not be seen, and breath held so as to not make a single sound.
You wondered why she waited. She was different from the rest. Those who waited for the bell to go or who waited for their friends to arrive.
She waited for the hallway to become quiet enough for her to walk through it alone. Because that's what always mattered to her. Hiding behind the curtains, utterly unaware of her value.
She seemed to believe that if nobody saw her, nobody could misunderstand her; if nobody heard her, nobody could laugh. As though being unseen was the same as being safe.
Eventually you realised it was because classrooms demanded performance, hallways demanded confidence, and everywhere else in school felt like a stage, but you, you let her be human. You let her be the one to matter most for once. In your silence, she could finally exist without having to prove she deserved to.
You would see her tear-streaked face and shaking hands when she came in sometimes. But you never asked her to hide them or demand happiness from her as the rest of the school did.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Listen and learn
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: Section B Listen and learn The acrid scent of gardening supplies and flourishing moss fill my nose as I guide…
Section B
Listen and learn
The acrid scent of gardening supplies and flourishing moss fill my nose as I guide your early hand through a crowd in which no face is recognisable. My grandchild, we both stand here now, in a shop that no longer operates under my name. I despair for your future, now seeing how I have contributed to the collapse of the lucky country, no longer so lucky. I beg you now, as young and amateurish as you are in these days, you must listen to me. Sit here and learn from me, as I failed to do so all those years ago.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: Writing about protest •…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Standing Up to Power Transcript: The people versus Borden: October 20th media address [reporters clamoring]…
Standing Up to Power
Transcript: The people versus Borden: October 20th media address
[reporters clamoring]
(Court Officer): The defendant has time for a few questions.
(Reporter): Miss Borden! Over here! Guilty or not Guilty?
(Defendant): That’s for the court to decide. If they find me guilty of painting a wall, they’re welcome to hang me for it.
(Reporter): Why that image? Why paint that?
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: 2024 VCE EXAM SECTION B
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: SECTION B – FINDING MY WAY There are many different options in life. So many different paths to take. But how…
SECTION B – FINDING MY WAY
There are many different options in life. So many different paths to take. But how do we know which one to take? The harsh truth is that we don't. We just have to try whatever seems right and eventually find our way.
My mum was a nurse. Dad was an accountant. Both were born and brought up in India. A very hot humid place with mosquitoes landing on you every two minutes. They both had a routine. They would wake up at 6, go to church, attend school, and finally come home to a kitchen filled with a sweet, spicy aroma. Dinner was late at 10pm surrounded by a big happy family and that sweet sound of jolly laughter. As the years flew by my mum got two job offers: One at Pakistan as head nurse and another in Ireland as a normal registered nurse. Logically speaking you would expect her to pick the one in Pakistan. Similar culture. Similar hot environment and ultimately a higher position status. But no. She picked Ireland! God knows why. A freezing environment. A more foreign language. However it was probably more civilised and guaranteed higher security that ultimately led to this final decision.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: We are doing Animal Farm as our text…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: The sheep's stomachs churned with acid. The land cracked under the unforgiving sky that promised no life, its…
The sheep's stomachs churned with acid. The land cracked under the unforgiving sky that promised no life, its creations longing for a belly not so empty. The sheep had long since given up on the flourishing of the present, the current age now merely a period of waiting to progress into the next stage of life, trusting that permanent unconsciousness was kinder to beast.
Today, another death had been announced. The sheep listened in undying jealousy to the snakes reporting on Daisy, whose suffering had ceased. The snakes continued on with the same rhetoric that the sheep had become quite accustomed to.
'In this period of uncertainty, it is of utmost importance to lean on your peers...'
The sheep's eyes glazed over as they silently mouthed the extraordinarily impersonal monologue, longing for the closing sentence to free them.
Today, it never came.
The snakes cleared their throats, straightening their posture in a demonstration of respect they'd never before given. One particularly thick viper slithered forward to address the assembly.
'Friends,' he began, his thin lips stretching into an impossibly charming smile, 'I have a proposal for you all.'
Curious about the unfamiliar addition to the monologue, the milky glaze lifted from the sheep's eyes.
'As we are all very well aware, this famine is soon to be the death of us.'
Cautiously, the sheep cocked their heads.
'But while others have been mourning our circumstances,' the viper continued in a soothing, honey-like tone, 'I have been hard at work devising a brilliant new order for managing the farm. If you grant me leadership, the age of starvation is a matter of the past.'
What followed was a storm of voices, hope and fear tearing at one another until neither could be distinguished from the other. Eventually, someone suggested a vote.
27 in favour, 24 against.
It was settled.
'Good.'
They slithered away.
By dusk, a pile of food had miraculously appeared in the centre of the field. It was strange, consisting of what appeared to be tree sap glowing artificially blue; the sheep had never eaten anything like it. The snakes admitted to the group it was not nutritious enough to sustain a population long-term. It would have to be replaced. However, it was enough to keep the sheep from immediate death. To the sheep, this was a reasonable deal.
Exhausted by the day's events, the sheep fell into a deep slumber.
Upon waking, the world had changed.
Gone was the grey.
The morning dew sitting atop the blades of grass sparkled in the brightened sunlight, the blue tree sap perfectly replenished in the field. The sun sat impossibly static in the sky. Not a blade of grass stood taller than the other.
Deeply embroiled in their joy, the sheep did not notice the snakes quietly observing them from the hill.
The following day was much the same.
'What commendable leaders,' the group repeated amongst themselves, 'they have fed us and provided this beautiful new world for us all. We are no longer hungry.'
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: TITLE : The Quiet Protest Stimulus 1 :…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: They told us not to panic. That the climate has always changed. That the world has survived worse. That…
They told us not to panic. That the climate has always changed. That the world has survived worse. That innovation will save us before consequence finds us. I wanted to believe in them. Because it is easier to believe in distant solutions than immediate reality, because it is so much easier to believe that someone or something is in the background, calculating, correcting, and containing the damage.
But the sky has begun to look different. Stained orange by bushfire smoke, and hung so low and heavy in the summer heat, it no longer feels like a season, but rather a warning. My generation has grown up with evacuation alerts and air quality indexes replacing weather forecasts, and still, we are told to wait. To trust the process. To be quiet and told to let the ‘grown-ups’ handle it. But what does our silence mean when coastlines erode? What does it mean when temperatures break records before they finish being recorded? When ‘once-in-a-century’ disasters arrive every other year?
I am not here because I enjoy protest, and I am certainly not here because I find comfort in confrontation. In truth, I would prefer to believe speeches are unnecessary, and that these adults who are entrusted with power will act accordingly, without the need of being asked.
Silence is no longer wisdom. Silence is now permission. Our silence has not lowered emissions. Our silence has not prevented bushfires from burning.
We are told we are young and that we lack perspective, and in truth, yes, maybe we are. But what we do have perspective of, is the feeling of practising evacuation drills for bushfires. We understand that our future is being discussed in conference rooms we will inhabit after you all retire.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework: Protest Title: "A good kind…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: A good kind of trouble November 17 2026 5:00 pm Now I see. It's been four years since I left. Four years since…
A good kind of trouble
November 17 2026 5:00 pm
Now I see. It's been four years since I left.
Four years since I took control. Four years of
stress and love and peace and fighting
and trouble.
And in the end, it truly was the good kind of trouble.
November 17 2026 4:00 pm
Where to begin? Finishing school, I wanted, I
needed something bigger, to branch out and
broaden my horizons. I decided I would move
interstate for uni and fully realise my newfound
freedom as an adult. Mum didn't think so.
'It's too great a risk' she said. 'You don't
even know how to change your sheets'. And maybe that was a risk, maybe I didn't know how to change my sheets. But I
didn't care. I had already made up my stubborn
little mind. The match had been struck.
And so we argued. We yelled. We ignored each
other. We argued some more. Every conversation became
a battlefield, in whose crossfire my poor
dad and brother were caught. She saw
a boy she had spent almost two decades raising simply walking away. I saw it as settling for nothing less than what I truly wanted.
We really suffered, like proper trouble. She almost didn't come to my valedictory dinner, and often I had to sneak out to evade the strict rules she'd imposed due to the iron curtain between us. It had never been this bad, not even when I was suspended for getting in a fight back in Year 9.
Anyway, I smashed my exams, and got accepted to university in Sydney on a full scholarship. When that acceptance letter arrived in the mail I placed it on the kitchen table between us. I was going. And so I packed my bags and headed north.
Now, four years later, I stand at the same kitchen table. I've finished my degree. I'm moving back home, back sleeping opposite my little brother, back to nothing.
And I can't help but wonder, was it all worth it? All that agony and arguing and trouble and chaos, if I'm ending up right where I started.
If the success of my protest, all the trouble I went to, is determined by what has visibly changed, then maybe I was just wrongly stubborn. Maybe mum was right.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Stepping Up
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: Stepping Up Thank you for waiting. I know it’s cold on these steps, and some of you have been at Fed Square…
Stepping Up
Thank you for waiting. I know it’s cold on these steps, and some of you have been at Fed Square for hours.
My name is Anna. I helped build the surveillance system you’re protesting. I was a contractor on Spring Street, and I want to admit something nobody in government will. I was half right.
It was 2026. Machete attacks at tram stations, drive-by shootings, home invasions. We wanted cameras that could see the blade before it was swung. You wanted them too. Some of you stood on Parliament’s steps demanding exactly that. The government told my company to “step it up.” We installed cameras at high-risk stations. People felt safer. We called it progress.
Then came the next step. Cameras spread into streets and shopping centres. I connected their footage to Myki records, fingerprints and purchases. We stopped looking only for weapons; we started tracking where you went, whom you met and how you spent your money. I wrote the algorithm that compared your movements with your usual routine. Any difference became a flag.
Within a year, flags became penalties. A train gate could reject you when your face didn’t match your card. Jaywalking or travelling somewhere unfamiliar lowered your citizen score. A low score could restrict transport and public services. Each rule sounded reasonable by itself. Together, they turned everyday life into a test you could fail without knowing the questions.
We weren’t afraid of too much surveillance. We were afraid of not enough. So we learned the rule the government never had to announce: don’t step out of line.
A few years later, some of you changed your minds. The same people who marched for cameras marched against them. That should have been democracy working. But attending a rally now cost you points. Nobody was arrested. Nobody needed to be. People did the maths and stopped coming.
And when the marches stopped, surveillance expanded again. With no crowds demanding limits, ministers read the quiet as approval. Silence wasn’t protecting anyone. It was being mistaken for permission. The fewer people protested, the more power the system gained; the more power it gained, the harder protesting became. We’d built something worse than a camera that saw the blade: a machine that made changing your mind too expensive.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: the courage to become
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The Courage to Become Good morning, everyone. What if the person we spend our entire lives trying to become…
The Courage to Become
Good morning, everyone.
What if the person we spend our entire lives trying to become is the very person we must learn to leave behind?
We live in a society obsessed with destinations. We measure success through achievements, progress through milestones, and our worth through the expectations of others. Yet, in our desperate pursuit of who we ought to be, how often do we stop to consider who we truly are?
Perhaps the greatest misconception about personal journeys is that they must always lead us somewhere extraordinary. In reality, the most meaningful journeys are those that transform not our circumstances, but our understanding of ourselves. Because a journey is not simply about discovering where we belong; it is about discovering who we are willing to become.
This journey begins when we recognise that personal growth rarely follows a straight path.
We are encouraged to imagine life as an ascending staircase—one often constructed by family or society—each achievement bringing us closer to a better version of ourselves. Yet real growth is far less predictable, and often begins only when we find the courage to step off this prescribed path entirely. It is marked by disappointment, uncertainty and moments in which we question everything we once believed. We fail. We reconsider. Sometimes, we return to challenges we thought we had overcome.
And yet, we are so quick to interpret these moments as evidence of inadequacy.
We desperately attempt to transform every disappointment into a success story, convincing ourselves that every setback must have a purpose. But must every hardship culminate in triumph? Must every wound produce wisdom before we are permitted to acknowledge that it hurt?
Of course not. Sometimes, failure teaches us resilience. Sometimes, it teaches us humility. And sometimes, it simply reminds us that we are human: imperfect, uncertain and incapable of controlling everything that happens to us. In these moments, self-compassion is not a weakness, but a necessary act of reconciliation with the person we are, right now.
The value of a journey is not determined by how rarely we stumble, but by how honestly we confront what our struggles reveal about us.
This honest confrontation with our struggles becomes even harder within a culture that encourages us to measure our journeys against those of others.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: ‘Life isn’t about finding yourself.…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: I still keep the first roll of film I ever shot, sixteen frames, half of them ruined by my own impatience. That…
I still keep the first roll of film I ever shot, sixteen frames, half of them ruined by my own impatience. That roll taught me the six steps behind every photograph I make: load, expose, develop, fix, wash and print. I learned them the summer I turned sixteen, in a borrowed darkroom. I did not realise then that the same six steps would map the slowest journey of my life.
Step 1: Loading. This stage demands total darkness; one sliver of light ruins the film before it has begun. I was twelve, on the bus home from a school swimming carnival, when a boy from my year fell asleep against the window, the late sun slanting across his face. I studied him furtively, and something plummeted in my stomach that I had no words for. I told myself the feeling was ordinary, until the reassurance began to sound like a lie I was rehearsing. I told no one, not for years, and barely admitted the truth to myself. I carried the secret alone, frightened by it and embarrassed by that fear, yet beneath both, strangely certain.
Step 2: Exposure. The shutter opens, and light hits the film whether or not the photographer is ready; that is the whole risk. Photographers call it exposure: the instant an image becomes real, and therefore visible to anyone who cares to look. The word carries two senses. There is the exposure one chooses; mine took place on the back steps of my friend Athan’s house, both of us on cold concrete, him still in his footy jumper, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. Every version of the sentence I had rehearsed deserted me. We pretended to look at our phones so neither of us had to meet the other’s eyes, and I said it anyway, far more quietly than I had meant to: I think I like guys. Three seconds of silence followed, which I actually counted, before he replied, as casually as if I had confessed to being left-handed, “Okay. Cool. Do you want a Tim Tam?” Relief flooded through me so fiercely that my eyes stung, and for the first time the secret felt lighter than the silence around it. I have never been more grateful for a biscuit in my life. Then there is the exposure one does not choose: the constant dread that someone would develop the picture before It was ready.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework: Play Title: Players and…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: Tonight the moon hangs outside my window, stark and silent against the glass, the same moon as before. It…
Tonight the moon hangs outside my window, stark and silent against the glass, the same moon as before. It hasn't been different since 1972. But we have.
The young tend to think of werewolves or romantic ideas when they see it. When I look at it, I can still smell the hot ozone coming off the server racks and taste the acidic, stale coffee from a styrofoam cup. I find myself back in that room full of people, packed shoulder to shoulder with men in short sleeves and narrow ties, all of us taut nerves and intense hope, pressing forward as we listen to the static crackling through the speakers. We hadn't just been watching; we had been taking part in the most wonderful game that had ever been imagined, locked in the most audacious contest ever staged. Two diametrically opposed empires, balancing on the edge of nuclear winter, had agreed to translate their mutual terror into a race for the heavens. It had strict rules, relentless scorekeeping, and an unspoken mandate: win the board without incinerating the planet. When the President declared that we would do it not because it was easy, but because it was hard, we took it as a permission to rediscover our curiosity about exploration and progress by playing an entirely new kind of game. We built an Ark of aluminium and telemetry, hung it above our earthbound rivalries, directed it towards the heavens, and held our breath.
This seemed to be the century's response to its own existential apocalypse. Since we could not repair the world below, we constructed something to take what was best in us beyond it.
That was the hope we carried. The fear was that we were alone and that the void would engulf us completely, or worse, that our rivals would plant their banner first. Yet, in the end, it appears that all we have left on the moon are our hopes and ideals.
In the infinite sea of tranquility, the relics sit untouched by the shores of the cosmic ocean. Footprints pressed into the regolith, a stainless-steel plaque stating, "We came in peace for all mankind", and an enduring photograph of his family that Charlie Duke dropped in the dust. They will outlast every conflict, memory, and civilization on Earth, frozen beneath a black sky with no wind or weather to wear them down. They are pieces on an abandoned board game after its players had discarded their hopes and walked away. But while the pieces remain, the contest has concluded, its rules forgotten, its significance shattered.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The little kids in the yard play tic…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: Hey guys sorry for the long message, but I really can’t believe what Coach did last week… like cutting…
Hey guys sorry for the long message, but I really can’t believe what Coach did last week… like cutting training short just to catch the end of the boys game is pretty low, even for him.
I know we said we’d give this whole Tigers thing a go. But it’s the same as it’s always been, right? The same as when my parents exchanged a look and erupted into an ear-piercing laughter – like two hyenas. “It’s just a phase sweetie. Basketball is a boys game.” The same as primary school – a faded black and red court swarmed with 4-foot-something, snot faced boys that acted like this was the NBA championship showdown. Giddey versus LeBron. Shaq versus MJ. Finally, I built up the courage to face the team captain, who’s glossy, crimson cheeks stripped him of the intimidating presence he gave off before.
Joining the elite recess team would be a challenge, but what did I have to lose?
The playground fell silent. You know? The kind of silence where the sound of a pin drop would echo through the air.
As anticipation built, judgemental murmurs began to arise from the boys on the bench. “Who does she think she is? Girls are cheerleaders, not players.” My strides grew less and less confident with every step knowing that I was truly risking my reputation just for a chance to be included. Was it really worth it? Was it really worth spending the next term of grade four being the outcast who thought she had a chance at playing with the boys?
“Oi! No girls allowed.”
My gaze shifts to the tall, slender figure wearing a fluorescent orange vest blocking my path. His lanyard dangling in my face, keys clacking against the identification card with an obnoxiously large basketball sticker next to his name, basically mocking me. Of course I was overstepping. Us girls had the rusty remnants of the monkey bars if we were lucky.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Time for transformation
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: As the PowerPoint slide changes, a drop of sweat trickles across my face and drips onto my cue cards as I…
As the PowerPoint slide changes, a drop of sweat trickles across my face and drips onto my cue cards as I slowly walk onto the auditorium stage.
I look up and see the whole school looking up at me. Some confused as to seeing me at the lectern, some have no idea who I was. And the reason I was up here was just murmuring and giggling.
I gulp, take a deep breath in.
“Good Morning students,
Some of you may be confused to see me here, the quiet, nerdy Krish who sits in the library and keeps to himself. But, I put that beside me as I admit that enough is enough”
As I take a breath, out the corner of my eye I see them laughing as a teacher attempts to shush them.
I take one look at my cue cards and realize I don’t need them.
“No, no, keep laughing let everyone here see the type of people you are, the ones who think you’re so above everyone else”
The audience went silent, so quiet to the point where I could hear the breaths of the girls in the front row.
The smirks vanished from their faces. Caleb’s jaw tightened, a dull red creeping up his neck. Noah flinched, his gaze darting towards the teachers, while Jeremy instinctively raised a hand to shield his face.
I couldn’t understand how I was feeling although I knew it wasn’t bad.
“How can you three live with yourselves knowing you come here just to make everyone else here feel below you, how can you genuinely feel happy as a year 12 student making a year 7 cry because of his haircut.”
Just then, all 3 of them got up and just walked out.
“Sorry for the blunt start, I am here today as I firmly agree that we need a transformation at Westbourne Grammar.”
“Imagine, your mum waiting the whole day to ask you what your friends thought of your new shoes or a fresh haircut but she realizes you were made fun of by people like those three and you never wear those shoes again or wear a beanie until your hair grows back.”
I felt the eyes of the students who were on the brink of sleeping suddenly laser focused on me.
“You teachers all know that this is occurring yet you think by a simple warning or lunchtime detention that this will stop?”
“If that were the case, why are they still continuing and why to all the younger kids avoid interactions with them?”
“Clearly something isn’t working and its time to change.”
“I understand that as teachers you have a lot to focus on, but how can you expect a student to be ready to learn if the thought of being humiliated by people like them is consistently in the back of their minds?”
“We need to transform as a school and change the environment so that students feel safe and proud of who they are. And the time to transform is NOW!”
“Start handing out stricter punishment instead of a simple slap on the wrist or apologies full of empty or AI-generated words.”
“As I end this I just want to convey a message to everyone who has been or continues to remain impacted by bullying at Westbourne:
I see You.
I hear you.
and I will not be silent.”
“I will be the voice of you”
“It’s time for transformation”
“Thank you all and have a wonderful day.”
A stunned silence fell over the room, thick and uncomfortable. Then, a single teacher in the front row began to clap, slowly, deliberately. Another joined, then a few students, until a wave of hesitant but firm applause filled the auditorium. It wasn't a roar, but it was recognition.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: Writing about protest.…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Disrupt or be Defeated Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not…
Disrupt or be Defeated
Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not a very expressive girl—by expression or words that I say. I love fashion, and I use it as a medium to express “this is me!”—yes! expressing myself. Yet, sexual harassment is something I’m struggling to avoid—even when I’m wearing a uniform, or fully covered clothes.
There is too much sexual violence happening to women. When someone reports it, the very first question being asked is “well, what was she wearing?” or “did she wear something that is sexually appealing?” It is baffling that the immediate response is to blame the victim. Not only that, many men catcall a woman “oh, my pretty girl is wearing a skirt!” in a not so appropriate tone. What else have we got? “hoes,” “stripper,” and many more by society just because a girl is wearing a very cute top during summer. People constantly force us to just cover up more, don’t show any skin. But here, I am going to prove that sexual abuse does not start with clothing—but uncontrollable lust.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: Writing about protest.…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Disrupt or be Defeated Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not…
Disrupt or be Defeated
Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not a very expressive girl—by expression or words that I say. I love fashion, and I use that as a media to tell “this is me!”—yes! expressing myself. Yet, sexual harassment is something I’m struggling to avoid—even when I’m wearing a uniform, or fully covered clothes.
There is too much sexual violence happening to a woman. When someone reports it, the very first question being asked is “well, what was she wearing?” or “did she wear something that is sexually appealing?” It is baffling that the immediate response is to blame the victim. Not only that, many men catcall a woman “oh, my pretty girl is wearing a skirt!” in a not so appropriate tone. What else do we got? “hoes,” “stripper,” and many more by society just because a girl is wearing a very cute top during summer. People constantly force us to just cover up more, don’t show any skin. But here, I am going to prove that sexual abuse does not start with clothing—but uncontrollable lust.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: Writing about protest.…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 85%: Disrupt or be Defeated Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not…
Disrupt or be Defeated
Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not a very expressive girl—by expression or words that I say. I love fashion, and I use that as a media to tell “this is me!”—yes! expressing myself. Yet, sexual harassment is something I’m struggling to avoid—even when I’m wearing a uniform, or fully covered clothes.
There is too much sexual violence happening to a woman. When someone reports it, the very first question being asked is “well, what was she wearing?” or “did she wear something that is sexually appealing?” Which is very weird because why does your first question sound like you are blaming the victim? Not only that, many men catcall a woman “oh, my pretty girl is wearing a skirt!” in a not so appropriate tone. What else do we got? “hoes,” “stripper,” and many more by society just because a girl is wearing a very cute top during summer. People constantly force us to just cover up more, don’t show any skin. But here, I am going to prove that sexual abuse does not start with clothing—but uncontrollable lust.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework 2: Writing about protest.…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Disrupt or be Defeated Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not…
Disrupt or be Defeated
Hello everyone. I’m Jessy Vintian, 17 and just a high-school student. I am actually not a very expressive girl—by expression or words that I say. I love fashion, and I use that as a media to tell “this is me!”—yes! expressing myself. Yet, sexual harassment is something I’m struggling to avoid—even when I’m wearing a uniform, or fully covered clothes.
There is too much sexual violence happening to a woman. When someone reports it, the very first question being asked is “well, what was she wearing?” or “did she wear something that is sexually appealing?” Which is very weird because why your first question sounds like you are blaming the victim? Not only that, many men catcall a woman “oh, my pretty girl is wearing a skirt!” in a not so appropriate tone. What else we got? “hoes,” “stripper,” and many more by the society just because a girl is wearing a very cute top during summer. People constantly force us to just cover up more, don’t show any skin. But here, I am going to prove that sexual abuse does not start with clothing—but uncontrollable lust.