On Thursday 15 March, seventeen Year 8 students at Charters School in Sunningdale, took part in the BBC News School Report. More than a thousand schools across Great Britain take part each year in this day-long event which offers students the opportunity to experience working in a news team: from the early breakfast meeting, when they review the day's top stories; through the writing process, as students undertake research and interviews; and to the final product, when all writing is complete, film footage edited and the stories are sent out to a news-hungry public.
The students tackled a variety of news stories on the day, aiming to provide reports which were interesting, relevant and personal to them. News teams interviewed staff and their peers in order to add depth and a range of perspectives to their work and as with the real world of news reporting, the students had to keep to a strict deadline. By 3pm, all news stories were uploaded onto the Charters School Report web page. Their work can be viewed via https://chartersschoolreport.tumblr.com/.
Year 8 student and BBC School Report Day Editor Ella Clarke said, “My biggest challenge was ensuring that each team produced great articles and that we worked to the publication deadlines.”.
Miss Fay Brennan, an English and Media teacher at Charters School who organised the event said, “I am very excited to once again be running the BBC School Report here at Charters - an event that we have taken part in since 2007. We are very lucky to have so many passionate and articulate young people in year 8. I have been extremely impressed with the hard work and dedication of the news team and am proud of the many outstanding articles and the awesome TV broadcast they created. I look forward to doing it all again next year.”