Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person in the world!
An average day for me starts by hopping onto the computer and reading emails from teachers about how engaged their students are and how amazing their writing has become.
This one is from Cherie from Prescott College Southern in South Australia.
I remember a young girl of mine getting picked up by her Father. She was skipping while holding his hand and saying ‘We had so much fun today! We only had 5 minutes to write and we had to make it sizzle! Then we had to write another one and we had to make that one sizzle!’ The enthusiasm they have towards writing and being creative is so wonderful to see!
It’s an incredibly uplifting way to start the day and gives me a boost that coffee could only dream of giving me!
Teacher PD back in 2006!
While going through my daily morning routine last week, I had another uplifting moment when I saw that I had been named in The Educator’s Hot List for 2018. It is such an honour to be selected in the Hot List for the third year in a row, and it’s made me stop and reflect on what it all means.
My original goal for the Seven Steps, almost 13 years ago, was to have a positive impact on 1 million kids. Back then, it seemed like a big hairy audacious goal (or so they say nowadays!). But I’ve recently realised that since running that first workshop back in 2005, we estimate the Seven Steps has been taught to roughly 1.4 million students all over Australia.
It leaves me speechless.
Clearly, it’s not just me and my team training all those students… It’s the schools, principals, literacy leaders and teachers who have made a real difference in students’ confidence and enjoyment in writing that should take all the credit.
The teachers and schools who have implemented the Seven Steps into their English and writing classrooms have done such an incredible job of developing their students into such strong communicators, who can write with power, confidence and creativity – enough to take on the world.
Not enough thanks can go out to you – the amazing and passionate educators who have created an infectious buzz around the Seven Steps. Educators such as Claudine Moncur-White (Rasmussen State School), Cherie Forbes (Prescott College Southern) and Leigh Tankey (Agnes Water State School). Educators like you.
You are all out there, nurturing your students, developing their writing and fostering their creativity. You’re making real change happen in schools and in kids every day.
To every teacher, principal, coordinator and coach, you are a part of this wonderful Seven Steps team, so ‘Thank You’ for another transformative year of inspiring great writing.
I can’t wait to continue the Seven Steps journey with you.
Jen McVeity
Seven Steps to Writing Success Creator
The Big Interview
Teaching To Write the Right Way – The Educator
