BBC News School Report

Over 500 schools across the UK became news broadcasters on 26 March 2009 as they took part in the BBC's School Report project, which aims to engage teenagers with the news through learning about news production.

 

The voices of 11 to 14 year olds were brought to a wide audience as they worked to a strict deadline to publish multi-media news reports on their school websites, to which the BBC link.
Pupils’ work was also featured on national, regional and local news programmes and websites, the BBC's red button service and iPlayer.

Young journalists questioned political party leaders, celebrities and people in the street to cover a wide range of news topics including the credit crunch, voting at 16, eating disorders, hospital super bugs, Olympic hopefuls, using mobiles at school, astronauts and fathers serving in the army. See these stories and others.

 

In the run-up to the third annual News Day, over 25,000 students learned about news production using free online resources including a series of videos presented by BBC News presenter, and former teacher, Huw Edwards.

He said: "I'm involved because I want to give young people the chance to make the news themselves, and I want to share the principles of good journalism."
An additional 400 BBC staff members volunteered to share their expertise with schools during this year’s project.

An independent evaluation of School Report in 2008 endorsed its educational worth, while another found that participation in the initiative could help raise literacy.

The initiative is open to all schools in the UK and teachers can find out more, and register their interest, online at www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport.