Digital Programs

Story Factory Digital Workshops are the ideal solution for teachers looking for extra creative writing resources to build literacy and engage students. 

Our online programs are interactive and easy to implement. Our educators enter your classroom via Zoom and work with you to create a fun but meaningful writing environment. We will take  students through a series of scaffolded activities that lead to a substantial piece of writing, and share ideas and resources that you can use to continue your students’ writing journey after the program ends.

We offer:

  1. One-off workshops: a one-off blast of inspiration and writing fun. These programs offer exciting and immersive ways for students to engage with creative writing, exploring everything from fantastical scenarios to their own experiences
  2. Short series. In  3 x weekly one-hour workshops students are supported step-by-step to craft a substantial piece of original writing, from poetry to prose.

Enrolments are now open for 2023. Reach out today to find out more about how we can engage and support your class.

Monster Under the Couch

Years 3-4

One-off workshop

Students imagine a hungry monster living under their couch and write about their first epic encounter with it as a narrative poem. Students will be guided through key aspects of the form and the use of various poetic devices including...

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Chatbot

Years 5-6

One-off workshop

Are your students finding it hard to write meaningful dialogue in their stories? In this fun and interactive workshop students will meet and help a robot - the SF Chatbot 2000 (Chatty) - have better conversations. They'll focus on three techniques...

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Secrets of the Stars

Early Literacy (Years 2-4)

Three Week Program

First Nations people have tens of thousands of years of knowledge sharing the unique shapes and stories of the stars visible from this hemisphere. In this workshop series, students will explore the Star Stories of the Dreaming and consider the...

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Art Alive

Years 3-4

Three Week Program

In this workshop students will explore the artworks of artists including Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, using their quirky and colourful pieces to inspire poetry. Students will reimagine the stories and characters behind the works, expanding their vocabulary to bring art to...

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Food, Glorious Food

Years 3-4

Three Week Program

Through different workshops week to week, all themed around food, students will be introduced to different literary devices, work with model texts and scaffolds, and bring their own tastes and passions to the table to write a collection of poetry...

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Secret Life of Stuff

Years 3-4

Three Week Program

In this workshop Story Factory guides students through an exploration of the creative techniques used by cartoonists to anthropomorphise objects and animals. Students will bring objects from their daily lives to life, creating unique characters, imagining daily activities and drafting...

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Deadly Lyrics

Years 5-6

Three Week Program

Looking to share contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices with your students? Each week students will explore a track by Indigenous artists and use it as inspiration for their own lyric writing. They will learn about Indigenous cultures and...

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What in the World

Years 5-6

Three Week Program

Ever heard of Cheese Rolling in Coopers Hill, or Worm Charming in Willaston, or the Wife Carrying Race in Dorking? In this program students act as news reporters, sent to investigate the weird traditions of small towns with odd histories...

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Haunted Computer

Years 7-8

One-off workshop

Experimenting with style? Considering the audience? Finding it all a little dry? This workshop gives students a chance to practise these specific English skills while engaging in a fun and interactive experience, drawing from two clashing formats - horror movies...

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Creature Feature

Years 9-10

One-off workshop

Have you ever had a nightmare you can't quite explain? In this workshop students explore prose poetry and surrealism as they prepare to write their own short horror narrative based on an alien invasion. They learn strategies for ideating and...

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Inside Out

Years 7-8

Three Week Program

Have you ever judged a book by its cover? Ever felt that someone judged you? This workshop gives students an opportunity to look beyond our everyday appearances and imagine other people's experiences. Students will develop a portfolio of writing including...

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Odes & Anti-odes

Years 7-8

Three Week Program

In this short series students will have the opportunity to both rant and celebrate! Students will learn about the form, language features and history of the ode as well as some useful strategies for idea generating, using mentor texts and...

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The Art of Protest - featuring the painting of Blak Douglas

Years 9-10

Three Week Program

In this workshop series students are introduced to the ideas of protest of art, with specific reference to work of Blak Douglas. Students will complete writing in various text types, responding to elements in the work of Blak Douglas and...

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InstaPoetry

Years 9-10

Three Week Program

So, as you may or may have not noticed, InstaPoetry is pretty big. These workshops introduce students to the genre, exploring the inventive ways the multimodal nature of Instagram is being used by young poets. Students will be led through...

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To learn more or to book a workshop please fill out the enquiry form here

School Programs

We work with selected schools across Sydney, Western Sydney and the Greater Sydney region to deliver one-off, term-long, and year-long, curriculum-aligned writing programs.

In consultation with partner schools, our storytellers and volunteers turn up every week, building relationships and trust with students, taking them through a fun and engaging writing process. At the end of the term the students have completed a piece of writing which is often the most significant piece of writing they’ve ever done. We celebrate their achievement by printing a beautifully-designed publication for the students to take home and show their loved ones.

We work with schools across different time-frames. Some schools take part in special one-off workshops and visit us in our fabulous writing centres in Redfern and Parramatta. At others we deliver a writing program across a term. We commit to working with our Residency Schools for at least a year, working across multiple grades, to create a culture of writing.

What’s better than a confident writer? A whole school of them! We see the power of this approach every day. The pride and delight kids have in discovering their ideas and voice is important and worth listening to.

Click here to see the workshops on offer.

Big Projects

Our big projects bring students together from different schools to create an exciting public outcome.

Often run in collaboration with other arts organisations, these projects are a rare opportunity for students to take part in something big. All projects have big finishes – culminating in books, exhibitions, publications, films and events. We love them and most importantly, so do our students

Memory River

High School, Stage 5

Memory River is a project which will combine Indigenous history, stories and art with the voices of young people from Western Sydney. The project will take place at The Parramatta Female Factory Institutions Precinct, a location with a long and...

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Sunset in My Heart

During Term 3 and 4, 2022, students from James Cook Boys Technology High School, Birrong Girls High School and Doonside Technology High School completed Story Factory's Sunset in my Heart program. In this workshop series students created personal essays and fragments that explored...

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Art Write Light

Art Write Light is a free creative writing project curated by Story Factory, that connects Australian artists with young people in an explosion of creativity over three colourful years. This project creates opportunities for students to creatively respond to the...

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CineVerse

CineVerse is a Story Factory Big Project spanning four high schools in Western Sydney, five emerging film-makers, over 80 poems and up to 20 short films. Cinematic in both scope and vision, CineVerse allows teenagers from widespread communities to use the language...

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Marvellous Birds

Marvellous Birds is a creative writing and storytelling project for Years 5 and 6 students. It investigated the feathered beauty of some truly incredible birds. Through carefully scaffolded creative writing activities, students explored themes such as community, camaraderie, displacement, environmental change, migration...

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Our Collections, Our Stories

In this Story Factory partnership with the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy (NASCA) and the State Library of NSW, students are immersed in a world of books and history. In site visits to the Library, students will create a collection...

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10th Anniversary Writing Prize

Story Factory 10th Anniversary Writing Prize ‘Voices in the Wind’ Supported by UBS Entries open 1 April - Close 31st May

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A User's Guide to a Pandemic

A User’s Guide to a Pandemic was an idea that started during the national lockdown in 2020. The idea was simple – that young people needed to write about this. Four writing centres for young people across the country joined together...

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Art and the Institution - Female Factory

The Parramatta Female Factory is an important site in the colourful history of colonial New South Wales. Since 1821 it’s been an orphanage, prison, asylum, medical facility and school. In Art and the Institution, Story Factory has partnered with the...

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Writers Teaching Teachers Writing

Writers Teaching Teachers Writing is a special program that allows authors and educators to interact in a way that is meaningful and beneficial to students. The program has two parts, student workshops running over six-seven hours, and teacher workshops running...

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In a Flash

In a Flash is a Story Factory project, inviting you, (yes you!) to become a published author. All you have to do is follow the writing challenge instructions and submit your writing!

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Instahope

For thousands of years people have known about the beneficial effects of reading and writing: bibliotherapy. But what about Instagram therapy? And what happens when you combine the two? In a Story Factory Big Project for 2019-20 teenagers are writing...

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We're Writing to Say

We’re Writing to Say... is a Story Factory project that aimed to creatively document the lived experience of young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the shared experience of a truly unprecedented year, the project connected young people with...

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In Person Programs

We work with selected schools across Sydney, Western Sydney and the Greater Sydney region to deliver one-off, term-long, and year-long, curriculum-aligned writing programs.

In consultation with partner schools, our storytellers and volunteers turn up every week, building relationships and trust with students, taking them through a fun and engaging writing process. At the end of the term the students have completed a piece of writing which is often the most significant piece of writing they’ve ever done. We celebrate their achievement by printing a beautifully-designed publication for the students to take home and show their loved ones.

We work with schools across different time-frames. Some schools take part in special one-off workshops and visit us in our fabulous writing centres in Redfern and Parramatta. At others we deliver a writing program across a term. We commit to working with our Residency Schools for at least a year, working across multiple grades, to create a culture of writing.

What’s better than a confident writer? A whole school of them! We see the power of this approach every day. The pride and delight kids have in discovering their ideas and voice is important and worth listening to.

Below are the workshops on offer in term 1. Get in touch to find out more and book now.

Magical Minds (early literacy)

Year 2

Term Long (8 weeks)

Who hasn’t wished magic was real? This program invites participants to imagine the fantastical realms of magic; students will develop spells, incantations, potions, and more. Expect to write unusual incantatory verse, scaffolded text types such as poems and recipes...

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Amusement Park Stories

Stage 2

Term Long (8 weeks)

This workshop gives students the opportunity to imagine and write a narrative exploring the dream first job…working at an Amusement Park! Each week students write a new chapter based on writing prompts which focus on different narrative or literacy...

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Dinoscussions

Stage 2

Term Long (8 weeks)

Welcome to the world of dinosaurs! Students will explore similarities and differences in the dinosaur kingdom, and the wants and needs of creatures. This program allows students to explore the importance of interpersonal relationships, use language to describe emotions and...

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Video Vortex

Stage 3

Term Long (8 weeks)

This program will use a video game structure to engage students and scaffold their creation of a narrative. Beginning from the idea that students have become trapped in a video game world, students will create characters, the world of the...

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Plant Powered

Stage 3

Term Long (8 weeks)

From a flower that resembles a brain to a three-metre-tall plant that smells of bin juice, sometimes nature is stranger than any fiction. In this workshop series, students will dive into the world of plants and explore a range of...

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Robots vs Locals

Stage 4

Term Long (8 weeks)

We’ve been wondering how we’d survive if a robot invasion occurred. No really, we have! In this workshop students will consider the consequences of a robot invasion in their school and town. Students will create a collection of...

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Heroes and Villains

Stage 4

Term Long (8 weeks)

What would it be like to be The Invisible Man on his first day of Year 7? How does Medusa order coffee without turning the barista to stone? In this workshop series students will reimagine and retell the stories of villains...

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Cli-Fi Diaries

Stage 5

Term Long (8 weeks)

Students consider the impact of climate change and imagine what their survival skills will be like come climate disaster. They will explore this through the lens of speculative fiction, a sub-genre of sci-fi that investigates alternative futures and realities. During...

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Protest Poetry

Stage 4-5

One-off workshop (2 hours)

In this fast-paced workshop, students will explore the world of protest poetry, exploring various examples both performances and written. Working individually and in small groups, students will develop ideas for their poems, explore language features, line breaks, and a variety...

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Robot Birds

Stage 2-3

One-off workshop (2 hours)

At Story Factory we’ve wrestled (in a totally gentle and bird-friendly way of course) birds and poetry into the mechanised, robotic 21st century! In this workshop students will begin by creating their own fantastical Robot Bird, a creature that...

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I'm a teacher and would like to know more.

After-School & Holiday Programs

Our after school writing workshops are a free space where young people can write, create and dream big.

All workshops are facilitated by our Story Factory Storytellers and are designed to support writing, development of ideas, and for young people to access support in creating a piece of writing from both professional writers and your fellow students. 

We’re running in-person and online workshops during term on Monday – Thursday for both primary school and high school students. We are also running an in-person high school workshop in the school holidays.

Check out the options and apply using the links below.

Sign up to THE HIGH SCHOOL HOLIDAY workshop here

Sign up to THE HIGH SCHOOL TERm 2 workshops here

Sign up to THE primary school term 2 workshops here

Technically Awesome

Grades 7-12

Tuesday, April 18th, 11am-1pm

90 George St, Parramatta, Burramattagal Land, NSW 2150

Dymocks Tutoring has a writing competition, and the prizes are between $500-$5000 dollars! In this workshop, we’ve partnered with Dymocks to deliver a writing class to help you create a piece of writing you can send to the Dymocks...

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Ink Society

Grades 7-12 (high school)

Monday 8th May- Monday 26th of June

4pm-5:30pm

Story Factory Parramatta, 90 George St, Parramatta, Burramattagal Land, NSW 2150

Anyone can learn how to write, and write well. Whether you're an intermediate storyteller who already writes (and reads!) alot, or if you're a total beginner and just starting out, you'll learn the foundations of how to be a great...

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Scribble Society

Grades 3-6 (primary school)

Tuesday 2nd May- Tuesday 20th June

4pm-5:30pm

Story Factory Parramatta, 90 George St, Parramatta, Burramattagal Land, NSW 2150

Everyone has a great story waiting inside of them! Story Factory wants to make yours into a book! We'll help you make all your amazing ideas into a story people can read and talk about and say "hey, this is...

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Just Add Ink

Grades 3-6 (primary school)

Monday, 1st May - Monday, 19th June

Mondays, 3:30-5pm

online

Come along to our Just Add Ink program, where we will meet online every Monday to create stories through fun activities and writing games. Our supportive Storytellers guide you in becoming an even better writer. Every week we build on...

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Control Alt. Edit

Grades 7-12 (high school)

Tuesday, 9th May - Tuesday 27th June

Tuesdays, 3:30-5pm

online

Join our Control Alt. Edit program, where we will meet online every Tuesday, to help enhance your writing skills through creative activities and sharing stories. Whether it’s poetry, scripts or short fiction, you will be supported by our Storytellers...

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This is Canon

Grades 7-12 (high school)

Wednesday 10th May - Wednesday 28th June

Wednesdays 3.30 - 5pm

online

Join our This is Canon program, where we will meet online every Wednesday, to help enhance your writing skills through creative activities and sharing stories. Whether it’s poetry, scripts or short fiction, you will be supported by our Storytellers...

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Unreal Writers

Grades 3-6 (primary school)

Thursday 4th May - Thursday 22nd June

Thursdays 3.30 - 5pm

online

Come along to our Unreal Writers program, where we will meet online every Thursday to create stories through writing activities and stories. As our supportive Storytellers guide you in becoming an even better writer. Every week we build on your...

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Year of Poetry and Year of the Novella

High School Students

Year of the Novella; and Year of Poetry; are our open programs for High School aged young people who love to write and want to stretch themselves creatively. In weekly writing workshops in the course of a year, students commit...

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Apply for an after-school workshop now.

Teacher Resources

Looking for creative ways to get your students writing and sharing stories?

Story Factory staff are all qualified, experienced teachers with a passion for writing, and experts at getting young people excited to write. Our tried and tested strategies are designed to engage students across both primary and high school, particularly students with low literacy levels, or are often disengaged.

I'm a teacher and would like to know more.