Bangalow students win top nie award

Winners of The Northern Star Newspapers in Education are (from left) Bridget Lea, 12, Kiara Milsom, 10, and Ler-Gene Paterson, 11, of Bangalow Public School.

DAVID NIELSEN

BRIDGET LEA, from Bangalow Public School, loves writing stories and thinks she might like to be a writer one day.

So it was encouraging that the future journalist or author was announced the winner of The Northern Star's Newspapers in Education (NIE) competition at Lismore City Hall yesterday.

The NIE program provides the opportunity for school students to submit articles to the competition's weekly page, published inTuesday's edition of The Northern Star.

Teacher of the winning class, Melanie Le Suer, said she was delighted her students won the competition.

“I think the Newspapers in Education program is fantastic,” she said. “It has motivated the students to learn about community issues, with the bonus of teaching them how to get their ideas in writing across more succinctly,” she said.

Bridget, 12, wrote an article about Landcare with fellow student Ler-Gene Paterson, 11, and said she enjoyed being involved.

“I think the competition is important and was a really good thing to participate in,” Bridget said.

Gene said he learnt a lot about writing.

More than 85 schools joined in this year's program. The NIE program has now been running for 20 years in the local region.