S2 pupils from Robert Gordon’s College have been brushing up on their reporting skills with a little help from BBC presenter, Colin Wight, in order to take part in the BBC School Report ‘News Day’ on Thursday 11 March.
They will take part in a World Record attempt for the Largest Interactive Weather Report, as well reporting on the Scotland versus England rugby, including an interview with Scotland captain, Chris Cusiter
Using lesson plans and materials from the BBC website, and with first-hand support from Colin Wight, who visited the school, pupils have been developing their journalistic, filming and editing skills in connection with this project.
11-14 year olds from 70 Scottish schools will take part tomorrow in a UK-wide ‘News Day’, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school website, to which the BBC aims to link.
During ‘News Day’ 2010, pupils and their work may be featured on the BBC’s various news outlets on TV, radio and online, including Reporting Scotland, Newsdrive, The News Channel, Breakfast News, the One O’clock and Six O’clock News and Newsround. The School Report website will also become a TV channel and a radio station streaming pupils’ news reports and coverage of school-based activities throughout the school day, available via the BBC’s red button service.
This year schools are also attempting to set the World Record for the Largest Interactive Weather Report. To help with this, pupils from the school will be taking the temperature at 9.15 am and submitting it to BBC Weather who will be compiling it into a weather report.
BBC News presenter and former teacher, Huw Edwards, is working on School Report along with BBC Scotland presenters Gary Robertson, Glenn Campbell and David Currie.
Huw Edwards says: “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 learnt 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.”
BBC Scotland’s Gary Robertson says: “I’m really looking forward to School News Report and delighted to be involved again this year. It’s a great project which gives youngsters across Scotland an insight into broadcasting and newsgathering. Coming up with the ideas for news stories, interviewing guests and putting together finished reports will hopefully inspire the journalists of tomorrow.”
The college’s involvement in this event is being organised by deputy head, Mike Elder, whose S2 English class of 13-14 year-olds have been busy preparing one of their news items for the day by interviewing pupils who have reached the final of the school’s Young Musician of the Year competition, which is being held tomorrow evening in Ferryhill Church of Scotland.
Pupils from the class have also had the opportunity to meet Chris Cusiter, captain of the Scottish rugby team, who is a former pupil of the college.
Lucy Browne (13) said: “It was brilliant to meet Chris and to hear him talk about how much it would mean to the team to beat England on Saturday”.
Elle Miles (13) met Chris with Lucy and was also impressed. “He gave really interesting answers to all of our questions and was great fun to interview,” she said.
The interviews and news bulletins by budding journalists from Robert Gordon’s and other schools around the UK will all be uploaded to the BBC School Report website, www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport, by 4.00pm tomorrow … that is as long as everything goes according to plan!
ENDS.
Further information: Mike Elder, deputy head, Robert Gordon’s College, 01224 646346
Photo Opportunity: Weather recording, verified by an independent witness, at 9.15am on Thursday 11 March as part of an attempt to set the World Record for the Largest Interactive Weather Report. Please arrange in advance with Mike Elder.
MEDIA RELEASE posted by Robert Gordon’s College. You too can post media releases (aka press releases) on allmediascotland.com. For more information, email here.
Contact: Mike Elder / Gayle Veitch
Email: g.veitch@rgc.aberdeen.sch.uk
Website: http://www.rgc.aberdeen.sch.uk
