These students participated in the Write a Book in a Day competition on Thursday, where they were given five parameters - two primary characters, a non-human character, setting and issue - and five random words - community, skipper, magic, canvas and stings - to help build their story.

They titled their story The Adventures of Shirley and Watty + Rhubarb, with Shirley and Watty named after Sherlock Holmes characters Sherlock and Dr Watson. Rhubarb is a goat.

According to student Isobelle Sotter, it took about an hour to brainstorm the story's main characters and direction the story would go.

"After an hour of brainstorming, we had the name of the characters," she said.

"Shirley is a detective, while Watty is her little brother.

"Rhubarb is the name of the goat. How the goat came into it was we were thinking of how we were going to work the dog collar (the non-human character) into the story. What was meant to happen was the characters were to find a dog to put the collar on, but they couldn't find one, so they had to make do with a goat.

"They can't have everything they want but they have to make do with what they have."

She said that collaboration and using the different talents of the participating students was the best thing about the challenge.

Students had to write the book, as well as creating their own illustrations, between 8am to 8pm.

Write a Book in a Day was one of the school's many Book Week activities.

Write a Book in a Day raises money for The Kid's Cancer Project, a charity which helps fund research into cancer treatment for children.