A dozen years ago, primary school teacher Andy Matthers attended a Shelley Moses workshop on the Morisset peninsula to learn how to make and work a puppet.

"I've always been very interested in creative arts and anything that may help me get the kids' attention," Mr Matthers said.

"Shelley's a puppeteer who runs two-day classes on making puppets at her Sunshine home, so I went."

At the course Mr Matthers made a boy puppet called Rusty.

"Rusty was an instant hit with my primary school students. He'd start the lesson by telling a little joke and the kids would then tell him one," Mr Matthers said.

And then came the twist.

"I set up a Rusty post box in class and the kids were encouraged to write to him. It was incredible," he said.

"The students knew Rusty was just a puppet but they made him real. In their letters they told him things they would never dream of telling me as their teacher and it was all valuable insight information.

"Through Rusty I was able to help them do much better at school work."

Now working on a PhD doctorate, Mr Matthers is a senior lecture of education whose students are themselves young teachers.

But he hasn't forgotten the value of Rusty.

"A group of my students recently attended a Shelly Moses workshop and made their own puppets with the help of a subsidy from the college.

"I don't have Rusty anymore, I now have Jim, son of Rusty."