大象传媒

The teacher's view

Filey School decided to get involved in the School Report project for 2009 because we think it is a great opportunity for our students to develop their ICT, literacy and citizenship skills in a fun and purposeful way. As Curriculum Leader for ICT, I am leading the project in school. Our Year 8 Gifted and Talented students will be involved on the 'Big Day'. However, all Year 8 pupils have been learning how to put news reports together with the help of Huw Edwards' lesson plans.

The stories vary and students are looking for innovative ways to have an impact. One pair have written to Lenny Henry in the hope of an interview about his current production, 'Othello' which is coming to our neighbouring town of Scarborough. Local TV weatherman, Paul Hudson, has given our own 'met' reporter, Harry, some top tips on covering the weather. One of our police officers, PC Nicholson, is being interviewed by one set of students about crime in the area.

So far, the students are really enjoying the project and are looking forward to the day itself, with its pressures and, hopefully, satisfactions. Many members of staff are also getting involved to help make it successful.

We are hoping the project inspires students to continue making the news and would like to air 'Filey Teen News' on a regular basis around the school.

The student's view

My name is Alistair and I am in Year 10 at Filey School. I have been helping out the Year 8 students and mentoring them on how to create their news reports. I am interested in the technical side of things and have been helping students with a range of different issues. Some of them don't understand how the relevant software works so, for example, I showed two students how to animate pictures for their weather report. They were really interested and now know how to use animated weather icons in their forecast. They are also researching ways to record their weather bulletin.

The students have divided into groups and decided on which topics they want to cover. We have presenters, local, national and international journalists, weather presenters, modern arts reporters and sports journalists. There is also a chief editor and a head technician. These two roles were chosen by a vote among the general students involved in the project.

The students are beginning to become anxious about the amount of time they have to complete their reports. However, they have been told that this is much longer than the time that real journalists are usually given!