Enabling children as writers: Learning from Pacific expertise in education

A best evidence in action exemplar on Education Counts has been made available titled 'Enabling children as writers: Learning from Pacific expertise in education'. Excerpts from the exemplar follow:

This best evidence in action exemplar provides a window into the transformative work of poet, Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh, working collaboratively with former principal, Liz Horgan, and staff and students at St Joseph’s School, Otahuhu.

The Ministry of Education’s Reading Together® Project Manager (2011-2015), John Good, initiated and co-constructed a project to build on and expand the Writers in Schools programme with a group of Otahuhu Schools, all of which had been implementing Reading Together® Te Pānui Ngātahi.

Building on the student and family/whānau engagement through Reading Together®, a collaborative model was developed with the partners providing support and funding. The partners were the Writers in Schools programme, the National Library, the Otahuhu Community Library and the community of schools. The first year of implementation was 2015.

Each school had a selected children’s writer working with their students and teachers over several days, with a focus on the school community celebrating and publishing the students’ writing.

The videos in this exemplar – including the community celebration of the students’ writing – were filmed in 2016. The student’s poems were published by the school in "A Cloak of Poems".

Further Information and Videos:

• Enabling children as writers: Learning from Pacific expertise in education
• Children’s poetry – Identity and Voice
• Enabling children as writers
• Writing for readership/audience