Nestled in the outskirts of Newcastle, St Philip’s Christian College Cessnock were conscious they needed to tackle their written literacy teaching and student learning.  The solution?  A schoolwide (Y5–8) implementation of Writer’s Toolbox.

“In my experience, most teachers are good writers but can't explain why or how it works.  And so you lose that translation when they’re dealing with students,” says Assistant Principal David Cole.  A Writer’s Toolbox PD support package enabled St Philip’s teachers to teach writing with a common school language.  Teachers then delivered this approach to students at every skill level. 

Realising every teacher—not just English—is responsible for teaching written literacy, the school integrated Writer’s Toolbox into other subject areas: PE, Science, Maths.  These different subjects share the same foundational writing skills, such as fluency, high-order thinking, precision, and paragraphing.  This makes teaching writing crucial to student success. 

Teacher Fiona Reid says the interactive Educational AI on Writer’s Toolbox has proved an effective way of engaging students in their learning.  “The best thing we’ve been able to do is utilise the power of AI and the power of the Writer’s Toolbox programme, in order to develop student receptiveness to it, and their ability to engage and enact with that”.  

Implementing Writer’s Toolbox at St Philip’s has proved life changing.  As Fiona says: “We’re bettering our results every year.  We have seen the improvements in NAPLAN data.  “We have seen for the first time, our school made it onto the top 300 schools list”.

Enabling teachers to effectively teach writing literacy, St Philip’s Christian College students are certainly rewriting the history books of their school.