BBC News Day
March 3rd, 2008
Tollbar BEC Year 7s will be making the news on March 13.
That is the day that BBC News School Report gives young students the chance to go live on air with their video, audio or text-based news.
All over the country, students will simultaneously create news reports and publish them on their school websites which will in turn link in to the BBC.
Among the topics to be covered at Tollbar are topical local issues such as the proposed closure of Waltham Fire Station and Young Enterprise in schools. Nationally, the college’s Year 7s will investigate the safety of young people on MySpace and similar websites and will study the effect on young people of Gordon Brown’s elevation to Prime Minister. There will also be a report on the Brit Awards.
Mr Newton, who is running the project, has been on a course run in relation to the News School Report and has already set up a website link. He holds two meetings a week with the students to keep the project up to date.
“On the day, we will take over a computer room which will be run like a newsroom,” he explained. “We will also have student “journalists” out and about doing interviews.
“We have to submit our reports by 2pm and the BBC will then decide which are the most interesting and will broadcast them.”
In 2007, News Day students and their work featured on News 24, Breakfast News, the One O'clock and Six O'clock News, Newsround, Radio Five Live, Radio 4, local radio stations, regional TV stations, BBC Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and many local BBC Where I Live websites.
In October 2007, School Report was nominated for a Children's Bafta in the Secondary Learning category and this year it was a candidate for a Royal Television Society (RTS) award in the Innovation category of the Television Journalism Awards 2006/2007.
BBC News School Report is a cross-curricular project which can be delivered through a range of school subjects. Based on advice from teachers, it has been mapped to the curricula of three subjects - English/English Language, Citizenship/PSE/Learning for Life and Work and ICT/IT.
