About Narissa Leung

Hi there,

My name is Riss and I'm the Oz Lit Teacher.

I’ve always loved books and reading.

When I was in primary school, I was selected to be in Miss Patterson’s prestigious book contacting club. I spent my lunchtimes holding, smelling and reading beautiful new Australian books. I loved discussing the new books and dreamt of being a CBCA Book Week judge way back then.

I’ve been a writer since my year 1 teacher, Mrs Brown, said I was.

I’m a lifelong lover of writing thanks to Mrs Brown and her writing workshop. I have fond memories of drafting, conferring and publishing books in my early schooling days. I still enjoy writing today and have even had some of my writing published (no picture books yet, but it’s still on my agenda!).

Narissa Leung Australian Literacy consultant

My goal in life is to hook everyone (students AND teachers) on reading and writing.

Literacy opens doors. There’s plenty of research to prove the importance of literacy for both individuals and communities. I want to hook everyone on reading and writing in the same way my teachers did for me.

My favourite author is Roald Dahl.

Even though he's not Australian, I just love Roald Dahl's writing! I’ve always loved his creativity and humour and his willingness to break the rules. (Who said you can’t make up new words or frizzle someone like a fritter in a children’s book?) I find all of his books for kids simply scrumdiddlyumptious.

I’ve always been addicted to research.

I’m not talking about the formal university kind (although I do have a Masters in Education), I’m talking about the “I’m super curious about this idea, so I’m going to investigate it” kind...

As an example, as a university student I became curious about ways to reengage boys who’d become disengaged with education. So, I learned how to breakdance, then went to a school and taught lunchtime classes to disengaged kids. I took the newly trained breakdance team to do demos at other schools and even ran an interschool breakdance competition. Throughout this project, I studied the impact the renewed self-confidence and sense of connection had on the boys’ classroom learning. The results were amazing and confirmed my belief in the importance of social and emotional well-being on learning. I’ve done all types of mini-research projects since and each one makes me just as excited about learning (and research) as this one.

Riss leung Melbourne Literacy Consultant

I took a risk, ‘broke the rules’ and was awarded a $50,000 scholarship for my troubles.

I was working for the Victorian Department of Education at the time and received the prestigious Lindsay Thompson Fellowship at their Education Excellence Awards. I didn’t break any laws or agreements; I just did a bit of creative outside-the-box thinking. I used the scholarship money to visit schools and education departments in Singapore, the USA, Canada, China and India. I also visited tech companies such as Google, Intel and Cisco in Silicon Valley. I met some amazing educators on my travels and did an invaluable amount of learning about schools, education, learning, leadership, systems, cultures and people.

A student once told me I shouldn’t be the principal; it wasn’t because of my age though- it was because I was apparently too short for the job!

I was a primary school principal for four years before becoming a consultant. People were always shocked when I told them I was the principal because I ‘looked too young.’ I never knew there was a lower age limit for the job!

There were so many things I loved about being a principal: the kids, the staff, the community, the unpredictability and the absolute satisfaction of leading and supporting others to be their best. Not all days were rosy though, I did get called Mrs Poopyhead once. Ouch! (Still getting over that one!)

I’ve always been driven by the idea that postcode shouldn’t determine destiny.

This is the reason I’ll always support charities who help reach kids in underprivileged areas and the reason I’ll always have loads of free resources alongside the paid ones; to help students in every school access the best teaching and education they deserve.

I have committed to donating 5% of the profits from all Oz Lit Teacher PDs to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. This organisation is working to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous literacy rates in Australia and they are doing some really great work! I am so proud to have donated over $50,000 to this organisation already!

I started Oz Lit Teacher because I was annoyed at the number of American mentor texts being used in Australian classrooms.

In my early days as a consultant, I noticed a frustrating phenomenon: once teachers heard about the 6+1 traits of writing, they’d inevitably do a Google search for ‘6+1 trait mentor texts’ and end up with a crate of American mentor texts in their classrooms. These books had American spellings or were often about subjects irrelevant to Aussie kids' lives. (Shouldn’t our kids learn about the Stolen Generations before they learn about the American Civil War?) I decided that it was up to me to do something about this problem...

The Australian publishing industry is full of AMAZING authors and illustrators so I took it upon myself to start shouting about these from the treetops. I began sharing Australian mentor texts on my Instagram and it all grew from there.

I LOVE my work as a consultant!

One of the huge downsides of the principal job was that -as much as I tried- I just couldn't spend enough time working directly on teaching and learning. As a consultant I now get to spend all day, every day focused directly on my passion; I’ve swapped my time reading reports and strategic plans and replaced it with reading professional books and lesson plans. (Oddly enough, I still work long hours, but it hardly feels like work when it’s reading…).

I now run online literacy courses for teachers as well as engage in in-school consulting. No two days or schools are the same; I do literacy and teaching audits in some schools, classroom observations and leadership planning in others and curriculum work in others.

Want to get in touch?

Keen to chat about the possibility of working together? Have an idea for a future PD you'd like to see offered? Let me know!

Let's chat!