Red Room's secondary schools program, Papercuts, is a unique opportunity for students to appreciate poetry - from the inside.
The Ian Potter Foundation, who have generously funded this program, have recently made a feature of Papercuts on their website. Have a read of it here.
Papercuts is currently the only national poetry program available to high school students across Australia. The program was piloted with the support of the Ian Potter Foundation in 2007. In 2010, Papercuts has grown to include over 20 schools, and has moved interstate to include schools in Queensland and Western Australia.
Papercuts is a unique school program, in that it is designed to be a flexible unit of study that matches syllabus teaching and learning outcomes with the creative development and expression of students, through exposure to practising Australian poets. This exposure to contemporary poetic practise provides a level of insight that cannot be achieved through other means, allowing students to interrogate the process, as well as the end product, of their own and others' works. Our view of the importants and potential of poetry has been endorsed by students, teachers, poets, and education professionals, as well as by our benefactors.
Currently, Papercuts is comprised of two poetry education kits that have been written to match NSW Stage 5 outcomes. These kits are The Cabinet of Lost and Found and Toilet Doors, both of which have sprung from successful Red Room Company projects, and re-engineered for high school education. The Red Room is developing another education kit around the Sea Things project, and there are further plans to turn Pigeon Poetry into another kit.
In the near future, The Red Room Company will be redesigning the Papercuts website to cater more to rich media content, providing a better platform to showcase the individual school and student projects, as well as potentially implementing an online learning environment that will be used for cross-school collaboration and allow schools in remote locations to participate.
For more details about this program and to register your interest, please direct enquiries to our Education Officer, Fiona Curran. Please include information about your school, your class, when you would ideally like to run the program, and with which of the two kits you would like to work.
"It made me appreciate what a powerful tool poetry was... there was so much opening up, respect, and sharing, from the most unlikely group of poets!" - Sarah Johnston, Mt Carmel High School
"I recently saw this program on display at a high school in Melbourne... It seemed to spark the students' interest in language and verse to a degree I had not anticipated." - Professor Geoffrey Blainey
"The Red Room Company... brings poetry to where students are and to where their interests lie, and then transports them beyond." Eva Gold, ETA NSW
Papercuts is proudly supported through 2009-2010 by the Ian Potter Foundation.

Killara High School Year 10 students are working with poet Gareth Jenkins in 2010.
The School Brisbane Water Secondary College (middle campus) is located on the Central Coast of NSW, close to Ettalong Beach. ...
Wanniassa School, located in the ACT, will be developing their poetry projects using the Toilet Doors kit with one of ...
Davidson High School students will be working with poet Ivy Ireland in Term 2, 2010, on the Cabinet of Lost ...
Poet MTC Cronin will be working with the students from West Moreton Anglican College in Term 2, developing a Cabinet ...
The Red Room Company partnered with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Macquarie Fields High School to celebrate Governor ...
Norfolk Island Central School participated in Papercuts in Term IV this year. This and the Sea Things project on ...
Concord High School first took part in Papercuts in 2008 with performance poet [[Bravo Child]]. The successful Cabinet of Lost ...
Perth Modern School initially expressed interest in taking part in Papercuts in 2010. As Red Room was developing
Macquarie Fields High School worked with Papercuts for the first time in 2009, thanks to teacher Kelli McGraw. The school ...
Abbotsleigh participated in the 2007 pilot of Papercuts with poet Joanne Burns, and subsequently in the 2008 Cabinet of Lost ...
The Year 10 students of Fitzroy High School have once again worked with Papercuts to create Toilet Doors poetry. They ...
Belmont took part in Papercuts in November 2008, with a class of special needs students.
Concord High School first took part in Papercuts in 2008 with performance poet Bravo Child.
Fitzroy High School were the first interstate school to take part in Papercuts.
Abbotsleigh continued their Papercuts unit with poet Anna Kerdijk Nicholson.
Mount Carmel brought Papercuts to a regional campus.
Pennant Hills High trialled Papercuts in its pilot year.
Abbotsleigh piloted the initial Papercuts program with poet Joanne Burns.