BBC News School Report gives 11-14 year old students in the UK the chance to make their own news report for a real audience.
The purpose of the project using lesson plans and materials from the BBC website with the support from BBC staff, is for teachers to help students to develop their journalistic skills and become School Reporters.
School Report is for all 11-14 year old students, whether they are considering a career in journalism or not. The project is designed to be part of the mainstream curriculum rather than vocational.
Many schools work on School Report as part of their English, ICT and/ or Citizenship lessons. By building this project into the curriculum schools are also contributing to Government and local initiaitives.
What do participating schools have to do
- create news which could be as simple as one student reading a story into a microphone or camera, or writing a report for a news web page.
- have the ability to put the content on a school website at a particular time on a particular day (School Report News Day) 26 March 2009.
- have a formal agreement between the school and the BBC on the status and management of the news their school publishes on the internet.
- a commitment to share the learning from the project, free of charge to others.
There can be a range of media used video, audio or text-based news using one or all to create your news report.
School Report Awards Day
Every March, School Reporters show their skills in producing the news for a day. A handful of students are then invited to attend the BBC Television Centre in London for an award ceremony celebrating their achievements.
The BBC aims to
- interest young audiences in news of all sorts and the world around them
- support learning in schools by leaving a legacy of skills and understanding relating to journalism, such as critical thinking research, communication and teamwork
- provide the opportunity for students to consider the responsibilities involved in producing and publishing/ broadcasting their own content
- provide BBC audiences with an opportunity to hear the stories which are important to young people from different parts of the UK
- strengthen links between the BBC and local communities
Agencies involved in the Linx 2 Schools project are able to offer support to schools. This could be by
- links to the local community and joint partnership projects
- their expertise on local, regional, national and global issues
- projects that they are involved in that would be newsworthy to the public and students e.g. The Secrets of the Stone, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle
- Joint partnership initiatives e.g. Community Cohesion, Safer Schools Partnership, Sustainable Community Strategy
- resources, research materials, etc
- critical friend
Lesson plans can be downloaded from the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/school_report/527684.stm
Contact with internal and external agencies can be made through
- The Directory of External Educational Support Available to School 2007 (revised edition available Autumn 2008)
- School Communications Project Manager, Judy Simposn 01922 653842 Email simpsonj@walsall.gov.uk
- Linx 2 Schools website pages