384,000 Year 3-8 students
The wonderful Get NZ Writing project which saw 96,000 students writing and sharing poems between classrooms across the country. By the time Warehouse Stationery called time on Get NZ Writing in 2020 the programme had reached 384,000 students and become a much loved part of thousands of teachers' Term 1 schedules.
One of the warm up activities in 2020 used the famous William Carlos Williams poem, This is Just to Say. Students replaced key words in the poem with their own minor crimes which prompted thousands of poetry confessions (a small glimpse is included in the photos below). For a few weeks it seemed like every family in New Zealand had a kid writing a poetry confession - snipped cat's whiskers, licking icing off cakes and sending brothers flying off spinny chairs to name just a few. Listen to the interview below…