Blue Coat bulletin

NEWSHOUNDS (from left) Chris Taylor, Connor Stonall, Kshoni Simmonds, Ramou Bryan and Amy Grimsley

BUDDING journalists at Blue Coat school have been busy reporting on breaking news in preparation for a BBC take-over.

The Year 7 and 8 pupils spent a day covering stories such as the plane crash in Buffalo, far–right Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ bid to visit Britain and Latics’ one-off pink kit.

The project was a practice run for the BBC News School Report which gives 11 to 14-year-olds the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience.

On March 26, youngsters from across the UK will create video, audio and text reports which will feature on the BBC’s website, “News 24”, “Breakfast News”, The One O’clock and Six O’clock News, “Newsro-und”, Radio Five Live, Radio 4 and local and regional TV and radio.

Blue Coat pupils held a gruelling interview process to chose an editor.

They then took part in virtual masterclasses with BBC news reader Huw Edwards and have filmed outside broadcasts and interviews.

Mr Edwards said: “Over the years I’ve run many journalism workshops in schools so I’ve seen how much fun it can be and how much can be learned when there are real deadlines, real audiences and real standards to meet.

“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.”