ED! celebrates 25th birthday

ED! lift out returns today and this year celebrates 25 years of educating and entertaining West Australian school children.

The first eight-page ED! Magazine was launched on July 12, 1994, featuring editorial from Applecross Primary School students discussing money and debating to what extent smoking should be banned.

There were footy tips from former West Coast Eagles champion Chris Lewis, and prizes up for grabs included a holiday at Monkey Mia, and tickets for an Eagles versus Richmond match, and for Walt Disney’s World On Ice.

Reviews of bookMind Blowing!by Wendy Orr and movie Getting Even with Dad, starring Ted Danson and Macaulay Culkin, were also included.

Then editor of The West Australian Paul Murray said that although they already had a schools program of “a page or two in the paper once a week”, which had been successful in its own right, they wanted to go to the next level with its own product.

“I’d been adding lots of different sections to the paper — Health and Medicine, and the Today lift out, that sort of thing,” Murray said, “so we were trying to add more into the paper mid-week anyway.”

Inaugural ED! Magazine editor Jennifer Moran, who now lives and works in New South Wales, was delighted that The West had supported the lift out for so long and paid tribute to Murray for his enthusiasm in allowing her to edit it as she saw fit.

“He was a person who was open to innovation and the excitement of trying to encourage new readers from future generations,” Moran said. “He made the commitment to allow us to bring eight children into the newspaper every week.”

Schools prepared children in advance to be able to talk about the topic for page one when they visited The West. Moran and her team also asked students to think about something that was important to them and their school community, and come prepared to write their own editorial for page 2.

“So the children came for the whole day,” Moran said. “They worked on their stories for page 1 and 2, (and) we picked their brains about other things we were doing in other parts of the supplement and gave them pizza for lunch, which was a great hit!”

“What I tried to do was draw on that long tradition of interaction with children and actually take them seriously, as our future leaders, and give them a reason to want to read the newspaper and find some relevance in it but also to have fun.”

The West artist Don Lindsay, who has worked on the supplement from day one, said it’s been fun working on ED!

“I always enjoy the cover meetings where editor, designers and illustrator get together and bash out ideas for upcoming editions for cover artwork,” Lindsay said. “It’s always an opportunity to let the creative juices flow.

“My style tends to suit the section and hopefully acts as a hook for the readers. Hopefully it is a breath of fresh air in the sea of grey copy that is fairly standard in newspapers.”

Year 6 West Greenwood Primary School teacher Wendy Perry said ED! had been a valuable source of learning for her classes over a number of years.

“The students find the various sections very engaging and wonderful discussions can occur from the content,” Mrs Perry said. “The puzzles and quiz are always popular and the serial is looked forward to each week.”

She believes the News Flash column provides students who may not be aware of current events with an opportunity to learn and discuss things happening in the world around them.

Grab your copy of ED! inside THE WEST AUSTRALIAN today to find out what’s on for kids and their families at Fringe World and Perth Festival.