FRONT PAGE STORY

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 5, Issue 13, 25 August 1987, Page 1

FRONT PAGE STORY

For two years running, Raetihi School has shown its ability to turn out achievers, by again winning the Newspaper in Education front page contest, sponsored by the Dominion. Four Standard 2 pupils, Jessie Pope, Rebecca McDougall, Jan Crowley and Daniel McGregor under the guidance of teacher Jennifer

Godfrey, designed the page under the title 'Inklings'. Mrs Godfrey said the children listed all the words in the thesaurus meaning 'news' to come up with the name. The paper features stories from a child's perspective about real life situations, which contributed to its success. Mrs Godfrey said the children went to a sheep-

shearing demonstration and a dog show and found out about the local rodeo grounds. "They wrote what they knew about, all bar one or two stories," she saidi "The paper's layout was modelled after the larger newspapers with feature stories and photos. What the paper had going for it was its simplicity." For their efforts, the children won for the school a pack of resource kits and for themselves, $100, shared four ways. The children are part of a language extension group which meets four times a week, in addition to normal school curriculum. They visited the Waimarino Bulletin as a class and learned how a paper was produced. Mrs Godfrey said the visit was in invaluable experience for the children, who called on what they had learned when constructing their winning front page.