The City of Melville has received $60,000 in funding from the State Government for its Write Club project, an initiative helping school kids develop literacy skills.

The funding comes from the fourth round of the State Government’s Creativity for Schools (CFS) grants and will be used to extend the project to Melville Senior High’s Aboriginal Cultural Education Students in 2025.

Write Club places Western Australian authors and artists into primary school classrooms to help students work on a single piece of writing and an illustration.

The student’s work is published into a book at the end of the project which is celebrated with a book launch at the State Library of WA and an exhibition of their artwork.

City of Melville strategic initiatives lead Emma Hewitt is the founder of Write Club. She said the project helps students build self-confidence and literacy skills. 

“Write Club contributes to students’ social and emotional well-being and gives them a sense that they’re important people with important things to say,” she said.

“Part of the project was to break down this idea kids have that they can’t write, and really humanise the idea that it is perfectly normal to not have ideas or to run out of ideas when writing.”

Write Club launched in 2022 at Caralee Community School in Willagee for its First Nations students and was extended into Brentwood Primary School in 2023. 

Caralee Community School teacher Mandy Lansbury said she noticed improvements in students’ attitudes towards learning after completing the project.

“It’s helped students speaking and listening skills with being willing to share their stories and being able to speak to an audience,” she said.

“One of the boys in our class is on the spectrum [Autism] and would never speak in front of an audience but he got up a few times and shared his ideas. The program has had many benefits in many subject areas.”

West Australian children’s author Deb Fitzpatrick became involved with the project in 2022 and has just completed her third Write Club. She said her role was to provide guidance and support to the students involved and inspire them.

Ms Lansbury said was instrumental in inspiring and supporting the students. She said Ms Fitzpatrick was “so enthused and so invested in the program, the children loved it.”

Ms Fitzpatrick said: “I make sure they understand that they are not being tested or marked, and that Write Club is an opportunity for them to explore their creative interests in an encouraging and supportive environment.”

She worked with up to 50 year six students, spending up to an hour and a half each session. She encouraged students to draw on their own experiences, feelings and interests to help ‘colour’ their stories. This approach helped them build confidence in their writing as they felt they had something to say.

“Before they know it, some students who had described themselves as ‘not being good at’ writing, or ‘not liking’ writing, are scribbling words and creating scenes which they are excited to come back to next session and develop further,” she said.

Caralee Community School student Benjamin said he received lots of good ideas and writing tips from Ms Fitzpatrick.

“We had to write lists of things we like and things we dislike, and we tried to work those into our stories to make them a bit relatable because she wanted us to write about what we know,” he said.

“I had a really good experience, and it was quite fun to write a story knowing that it would be published in a book.”