��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility Feed

Keeping up with the Year-7s

2017-03-15T11:03:18+00:00

On the eve of ��̳ School Report News Day, Chris Gray from the ��̳ News channel describes the preparation he’s done with St Thomas’ School.

‘Their knowledge of editing software and camera shots was very impressive’

I was attracted to ��̳ School Report having worked with young people before, and I was keen to do it again. I would’ve jumped at the chance to do something similar when I was at school, aged 11 and interested in journalism.

On this project, I have been working with St Thomas’ School in south London, with some Year-7 pupils to help develop their story.

They were researching how different people learn and how teaching must adapt to those different types of learners, whether they are audio, visual or kinaesthetic learners.

The students I met conducted a study with the rest of the year group, analysed the results and will be following up their results with interviews with people in the school who focus on types of learning.

At the ��̳, I am a Broadcast Journalist on the ��̳ News channel. I work in the heart of the newsroom at New Broadcasting House as well as on location, working on many stories that develop throughout the day. The role can take you from political outside broadcasts at Westminster to major sporting events such as the Olympic Parade.

So far, with the pupils at St Thomas’ I've shared my knowledge of compiling a TV news feature, and the elements that go into production.

The most enjoyable parts were seeing how excited the pupils were when talking about the elements of a news report, and the different ways to show a story; then helping them film and develop their news understanding.

The most surprising thing was how adept the pupils are with new technology. For example, in one of the practice stories, one group looked at how schools were using coding to help teach IT skills.

Their knowledge of editing software and camera shots was very impressive considering their age. I was struck by the willingness the students had to work as a team and get stuck in with the basics, such as surveying their year group and emailing potential interviewees. Those tasks are the most laborious and time consuming on a story, but the students grasped very quickly that without solid data they wouldn't have a story at all.

The project taught me that the ��̳ has a lot of adapting to do to keep up with the younger audience. I'm 23, and only left school seven years ago, but the way schools are teaching their children, in terms of the new technology available, is way beyond what it was when I left.

So by the time these Year-7 pupils are adults the way they consume news will be fundamentally different even to my generation.

��̳ News needs to make sure the way we distribute our content is still relevant to this younger audience - a task which is already well under way.

What a treat to work with a great school. Outreach for School Report is a great opportunity for both ��̳ staff and the young people.

��̳ School Report is a partnership between ��̳ Academy, ��̳ News, ��̳ Sport, and ��̳ Children’s - it gives thousands of 11-16-year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own reports for a real audience, using lesson plans, ��̳ learning materials, and the help of ��̳ mentors.

��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the ��̳ closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.

Reporting for duty

2017-02-28T18:14:36+00:00

The ��̳’s new senior schools outreach manager, Margaret Burgin, sets out her vision for ��̳ staff and young people working together on School Report News Day and beyond.

‘I passionately believe that we need to listen to the voices of our younger audiences so that we have an audience in the future’

I am always struck by the fresh ideas and sheer energy young people bring to the news agenda.

It all started for me in local radio at ��̳ Radio Sheffield where we hosted a “radio station” for the Sheffield Children’s Festival which featured young people who produced and presented their own programmes.

There were lighter features, too - a satirical soap called Jarvis Cocker Street and a precursor to something like The Apprentice where the regular presenters at ��̳ Radio Sheffield were fired one by one. This project thrived, and we even did an exchange with South African schools for the Africa Season in 2004.

When News Action decided to pilot the schools project which eventually became School Report they invited me to an ideas day with other ��̳ staff with experience of working with schools – a really exciting day with like-minded colleagues.

Since then, I have done a number of ��̳ projects that have involved children and young people producing content; from schools versions of Dragon’s Den and Waterloo Road to projects with the ��̳ Philharmonic, ��̳ Learning and Blue Peter. I’ve also volunteered for School Report and I have never lost the sense of exhilaration which comes from working with groups of young people, who come up with fresh new ideas and ways of working.

School Report is now in its 11th year. When it started in 2005 the iPhone was in ‘secret’ development, YouTube was launching its first video, and Facebook’s then 5.5m users were restricted to high school and college students. Crucially, in 2005 only 15% of the world’s population was connected to the internet. It’s nearly half now and projected to be at two-thirds by 2020. Our generation of School Reporters aged 11 – 16 in 2017 have never known a world without the internet and all that it brings.

The other reason I love School Report is that it gives us the opportunity to help young people negotiate an increasingly complex media world. In recent weeks, for example, the world is beset by stories about fake news. As we now work with around a quarter of the UK’s secondary schools and reach over 60,000 children, we have a real opportunity to make a difference. We can give young people the tools to check their news and work out whether it may be accurate or not.

School Report has become a partnership between ��̳ News, ��̳ Academy, ��̳ Children’s and ��̳ Sport. This gives us a new framework with extra expertise. We have all the Academy experience in journalism training and the ��̳ Outreach expertise of staff volunteering. We have worked with Children’s to produce our Uploader, and Sport to curate content for our My Team initiative.

And, of course, all of the News experience of School Report content over the last 10 years.

This year for News Day we have a focus on the mental health of young people, and that will be the subject of an event in London. Across the country at least 400 School Reporters will come in to ��̳ buildings in Northern Ireland, Wales, Birmingham and Norwich.

In Salford, March 16th is a Big Digital Day with groups of pupils from schools across the north curating web content, making their own reports and finding out more about how to create digital content. We want as many staff as possible to meet our 11 – 16s so we know what their lives are like. We are also planning a few surprises for staff which might include a quiz to see who could pass a 2017 GCSE exam!

The other great thing about School Report is ��̳ mentors who work in schools and ��̳ volunteers who help on News Day. Volunteering is a win-win for everyone. Staff get to meet an underserved audience of 11 – 16s and to take that knowledge back to their departments. It helps career development.

School Report is a universal project. We have a complete variety of schools signing up, including independent and special schools, to reflect the UK population of 4.3m 11-16 year-olds as accurately as possible.

Following News Day, ��̳ Outreach will concentrate on the 11 – 16s audience, so that as well as School Report outreach, our staff volunteers can choose to encourage STEM subjects in school, or to become a School Governor, or run an employability workshop in a school.

The coolest people in some of the coolest roles

2017-01-31T09:09:59+00:00

Diane Reid, Head of ��̳ Outreach & Corporate Responsibility, sums up a year of of innovative and diverse outreach projects and says a big ‘thank you‘ to ��̳ volunteers

Audiences are at the heart of everything we do

“There is nothing like face to face interaction with the audience.” These are the words of Radio 1Xtra Producer Hermeet Chadha who worked with young people from Hackney on the design of a radio debate about what it means to be Black and British.

Hermeet was one of hundreds of ��̳ staff who volunteered to work on Outreach projects in 2016. The projects they worked on were exciting and varied - and all designed to enrich and inspire the content the ��̳ makes for its audiences. And here are some of the highlights.

David MacNicol, Assistant Producer in Newsround, worked with The Proud Trust in Manchester to help a group of young people, who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and/or Transgender to make a short film exploring identity. For David, the volunteering experience helped him to learn to challenge his assumptions about areas he assumed he knew well – which is key to making programmes with integrity.

In ��̳ Scotland, Jane Fowler and her colleagues found a new way to use the ��̳’s archives to prompt conversations between families and carers and people living with dementia.

Outreach in the ��̳ is all about getting to know and understand our audiences, and them getting to know us. We do this by running an employer-sponsored volunteering scheme that brings ��̳ people together with specific audience groups we’d like to serve better. Many of our projects focus on younger audiences.

2016 started with the premiere of ��̳ Three’s Murder Games: The life and death of Breck Bednar. The ��̳’s Outreach team organised the screening to raise awareness of the dangers of online grooming, with an expert panel and teaching resources from ��̳ Learning. It was one of a number of events organised by ��̳ Outreach to maximise the impact and reach of the programmes we make. After the screening, ��̳ volunteers worked with teachers and youth workers on how key messages from the film could be built into lesson plans.

Take it to the Bridge was an ambitious outreach project for ��̳ Music Day, featuring community groups and choirs across the UK performing live for their local audiences.

One of the landmark events of 2015 was ‘Who Benefits: Television & Poverty’ a conference bringing together programme makers, commissioners, people living in poverty and the charities who work with them, to talk about responsible ways to work together to portray people living in poverty. In 2016, we worked with Rural Media to put together an event Media on the Move for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community and journalists from inside and outside the ��̳. The aim was to move away from the stereotypes attached to that community to more genuine and informed coverage. Journalists and people from the GRT community learnt about each other, new relationships were forged, and this has already resulted in new content for audiences. Helen Jones, CEO of Leeds GATE, visited the ��̳ Hull studios with members of the GRT community, where they were made welcome, shared their experiences and learned more about how news programmes are made. Dave Howard, Senior Producer for ��̳ Generation, came away with contacts and ideas, some of which have already been made into programmes.

We also inspire people to consider a career in the media. Volunteer Anthony Williams, who works in ��̳ Comedy, managed to do this by telling the story of his personal career journey to young people during a day of employability workshops. And 6thform student Valentina from the West Midlands was inspired by meeting people at the ��̳ who had just started their jobs, such as runner Muaaz Khan, calling it ‘a spectacular experience’ which helped her start to think about her own career.

Marvin McKenzie is ��̳ Outreach’s Volunteering Manager. He organised a Science, Technology Engineering & Maths (STEM) Roadshow where a series of ��̳ volunteers with ‘some of the coolest roles’ in the ��̳ showcased their skills and their jobs to inspire and encourage young people from 32 schools across the UK, using challenges such as weather forecasting, coding, user testing games, budgeting for a TV show and design & engineering.

The amount and range of work we did in 2016 was only possible through the help and support of the community organisations we worked with, our ��̳ volunteers and the ��̳ Outreach team – all of whom have been generous in sharing their experience and skills.

So what does 2017 hold?

In 2017, our primary Outreach focus will be on ��̳ News School Report – a project which Is a partnership between ��̳’s News, Academy, Sport and Children’s Departments. It gives thousands of 11-16 year olds students in the UK the chance to make their own reports for a real audience, using lesson plans, ��̳ learning resources and the help of ��̳ volunteer mentors. Duncan Kirkhope is a Senior Broadcast Journalist for ��̳ Scotland. His enthusiasm for journalism was sparked by the visit of a reporter to his school nearly 40 years ago. Nowadays he tries to repay that debt by being a School Report mentor.

School Report is important work for the future, teaching young people how news is made: how to put together a news story, how to check facts and sources - increasingly important as they come across ‘fake news’ in all its forms.

Volunteer Yasmin Ojo, who works at ��̳ Radio London but took time out to get involved with ‘Pitch and Tour’ sessions for young people at Radio 1, sums it up: “My main goal of volunteering was to inspire other young people and show them that it’s possible to get a job within the ��̳ – and I feel like I achieved that. It has improved my confidence and I have been given an insight into what other young people want from the ��̳. I can now take that back to my role at Radio London and help inspire some fresh ideas to our programmes.”

For the Outreach team and for the ��̳ volunteers, Yasmin makes a point that’s very important to us: it’s all about the audiences. It’s what it says on the badges ��̳ staff wear every day: ‘Audiences are at the heart of everything we do’.

Where the journey starts

2016-12-07T14:00:16+00:00

Josie Verghese works in secondary schools with young people and teachers - preparing them ��̳ News School Report, for The Pitch and the project's annual News Day. She is encouraging more ��̳ staff from across divisions to volunteer their skills.

'We all have transferable skills to bring to School Report volunteering, and that's an important message for the young people, too'

The best bit of my job is going in to schools and working with young people - they never fail to surprise me and I really value stepping out of the ��̳ bubble and meeting our audiences.

My visits are to find out what they want to get out of taking part in School Report and show them that it's all possible.

I didn't begin my career as a journalist or working with young people. I was a secretary and PA at the beginning; I've worked at Children's and Sport; I took my NCTJ journalism qualification when I was part of the Newsround team, It's important to point out that you start somewhere and your career is a journey. And sometimes you don't know where it's going to take you!

Often when you visit a school you become the VIP in the context of being from the ��̳ so it's important to reflect the different roles and departments - to help them past thinking that it is only about being on television.

Josie, left, on a School Report visit

They often haven't thought that we have lawyers, people working in finance, coders and project managers, for example. Career options and aspirations seems to be an increasing focus for many schools and so sharing my story has become an integral part of my conversation with students.

During my visits, I get them talking about what they think news is, and learning about this is good intelligence for me and my School Report and wider ��̳ News colleagues. I am there because I want to gauge what they know and what they want from us, as well as find out what is on their news agenda - what the current classroom currency is and what they care about.

I try and always keep it informal - sitting in a circle not with students behind lines of desks - so they don't think I'm some corporate person or this is another boring school thing. Teachers love that School Report is about team work, so when we've warmed up I'll ask a young person to take notes and, if appropriate, someone else to take photographs, and someone to work on some quotes from the session. This means the teacher has then got something to follow up on with them on once I'm gone.

I've said they always surprise me, but I'm no longer so surprised that the ��̳ isn't the first place that this age group looks for news and stories. Social media is an integral part of their world.

Popular subjects with them when they get warmed up are crime and we work on how this is relevant to them - for example feeling safe in their neighbourhood and in their lives; or the education system and their experience of the changes to it; and needless to say it is rare not to hear about how much they love vloggers, YouTubers and celebrities.

Mental health and wellbeing seems to be increasingly popular in a broader sense too - from anti-bullying and cyber bullying to annoying siblings; from exam stress to body image.

We look at how stories are all around them - with me reminding them often they are the story and news isn't always something 'other'. I worked with a group talking about sport and they didn't seem that excited about it until one of the boys revealed he is a karter and has this passion and hobby and they realised they had a story under their noses.

My role is to work with them as a journalist, and once we get warmed up they love a bit of industry jargon to add authenticity and realness to their reporting activities - for example when we start story-development they love the idea of a news peg. It gives them something tangible to work on and start investigating, if only relating to an event due to happen at their school.

They also often start to see personal stories, events and things happening in their communities with that in mind.

I like to help them see that news isn't something other - it's not what someone else makes and it's not just about someone else - I want it to be more about them, relevant to them, and with them.

School Report has a broader responsibility around media literacy. I find that even teachers won't necessarily question sources of news let alone the young people. If something is on Facebook or comes from something branded, they'll trust that it is true and real - as soon as something is from a big band it's perceived as the truth.

So, when I can I will also work with the groups on thinking about the source of a particular story, who has written something and looking at whether it is balanced and what the agenda is of the author.

This may not sound like rocket science but I think we often forget that we live and breathe the media landscape, story-telling - and schools don't!

You don't need to be a ��̳ journalist to volunteer with ��̳ School Report. We all have transferable skills to bring to School Report volunteering, and that's an important message for the young people, too.

And you can be a remote mentor - from your desk - being a sounding board for a teacher running the project in his or her class. We have this model because we know not everyone can get out from behind the desk in their role at the ��̳ but they still want to be involved in media literacy.

You can encourage them to realise their ambitions. We've had School Reporters interviewing Mark Carney, Angelina Jolie, Malala, the last three Prime Ministers and too many sportspeople to mention. It's true that sometimes the ��̳ brands helps to open some doors when young people ask for an interview.

But I hope it is also true that by meeting someone in person who works for the ��̳ they realise that it isn't all showbiz, remote and just what they see on the TV or iPlayer. Rather they can be part of it - whether by sharing a story idea through School Report or perhaps pursuing a future media career.

Young voices on air

2016-12-07T11:09:22+00:00

Kalpana Boodhoo always knew she wanted to be a radio journalist. Now she's helping to inspire teenagers into a career in broadcasting.

'I want to inspire the younger generation, and make them realise that a career in journalism is very much achievable'

I have been a Broadcast Journalist for the last 13 years and 2017 will be my fourth year as a ��̳ School Report Mentor. As part of my day-to-day job at ��̳ Hereford and Worcester, I read the news, produce programmes and report on the biggest stories in our region.

When I was at school, I knew I wanted to work in radio, but I had absolutely no idea how I would go about achieving that dream. I did various things like record my own radio shows on my cassette player in my bedroom and volunteer for the student newspaper, but I didn't know anyone who worked in radio to find out what working in broadcasting was really like.

This was my main motivation for becoming a ��̳ School Report mentor. I wanted to inspire the younger generation, and make them realise that a career in journalism is very much achievable, and hopefully giving them some of the skills to set them on their way.

The first school I worked with was Trinity High School in Redditch. They had never done ��̳ School Report before, and seeing the enthusiasm from both the pupils and the teacher was so exciting.

They were all brimming with ideas and keen to tell stories that reflect their own lives, whether that be bullying or the pressures of exams. I was keen to help them develop these stories and turn them into radio. They continue to be part of ��̳ School Report.

Whenever I work with a school, I make School Report News Day part of ��̳ Hereford and Worcester's output. I will take the Radio Car to the school in the morning during the Breakfast Show, and do live reports throughout the day, so listeners can follow their progress.

I will also get some of the young reporters to read news bulletins, do the weather and the sport live on the radio.

It's not only great experience for the school, but it gives us as a station the opportunity to hear from some of the younger voices in our community and find out about the issues that are really important to them. We have also had ��̳ School Report pupils go on to apply for work experience with us.

I spend about three months working with a school leading up to School Report News Day. I will give informal lessons on how to find news stories, then help reporters develop their stories and secure interviews.

��̳ School Report has given me the chance to get out and meet some of the younger people living in Herefordshire and Worcestershire and give them a voice on the ��̳. I've enjoyed helping them share their stories and give them the skills and the contacts they need if they ever choose to pursue a career in broadcasting.

Bright news sparks kindled

2016-11-16T11:15:33+00:00

Duncan Kirkhope’s enthusiasm for journalism was sparked by the visit of a reporter to his school nearly 40 years ago. Nowadays he tries to repay that debt by being a School Report mentor.

'School Report students question the First Minister with the skill and confidence of political correspondents'

I was about 13 or 14 years old when a journalist from the Dundee Courier daily paper came to a careers event at my school. This chief reporter was enthusiastic about his work as a journalist and said it was a career which could open doors to many varied, interesting and exciting opportunities.

Now, after more than 35 years working for newspapers and ��̳ News, I still believe that to be true.

It’s probably harder for a young person to embark on a journalistic career nowadays than it was for me at the age of not quite 17 in the early 1980s. But I still like to think that anyone, from whatever background - if they combine enthusiasm with effort - can still achieve that goal.

Certainly many of the School Report students I have had the pleasure of working with over the last five or six years have had these qualities. One 14 year old whom I remember, practically ran out of the classroom to do an extra interview when I suggested one more quote would provide the final balance to an otherwise great piece of news writing.

I have taken School Report students to the Scottish Parliament to question the First Minister which they did with the skill and confidence of political correspondents. Young people I have worked with have presented their journalism live on the ��̳ News Channel. One group’s School Report project was judged so good, they were chosen to interview the Deputy Prime Minister at Number 10.

Being a School Report mentor needn’t be a huge time commitment. I did have a request once asking if I could pop along to a school, give the students some ideas, help them film a feature and then edit it for them....

But I believe School Report is more about young people finding their own stories that they want to tell. Then it’s the mentor’s role to help them take their work to the standards of ��̳ journalism.

Working with young people reminds me what an interesting job being a journalist is. Sometimes I forget that, too caught up in the hectic daily schedules of a busy newsroom. It rekindles the enthusiasm I had as a teenager starting out.

If I can interest a young person in journalism, who may have thought such an opportunity wasn’t open to them, then that would be a great achievement. It would also repay a debt to that enthusiastic journalist who came to my school nearly forty years ago.

School Reporters writing in code

2016-11-16T10:36:15+00:00

Abigail Seager used her STEM skills to inspire School Reporters to code and create infographics on News Day.

'The most rewarding thing about it was having a chance to get out of the office and try and inspire the next generation of broadcasters'

When I was first asked to mentor for School Report I was a Graduate Trainee Broadcast Engineer, and my immediate thought was ‘but I’m not a journalist!’ That’s still true. Now I’m a project engineer, I don’t even write in my spare time, in fact this is the first non-academic thing I’ve written since I left school. So what on earth could I have to offer a school full of students who want to produce great news articles?!

School Report provided some really strong training, so when I first went in to the school I had some tricks up my sleeve (wise up on your five W’s, they’re a lifesaver!). School Report also has some brilliant online resources for lesson planning and ideas.
I have mentored at two schools now – the second was the school I went to. The teacher was really enthusiastic about me meeting the students. We had a group of about 30, from all different year groups.

Being an engineer was not a problem – I was able to look at the team of students and see their strengths as I got to know them, and suggest to them different team roles that it takes to put an item or a broadcast together.

I visited a couple of times leading up to News Day and the most surprising thing for me was the sheer excitement and enthusiasm from the students. Their energy was infectious. As an engineer it can be quite easy to get detached from the audience we serve every day. School Report was a great reminder for me that beyond my computer screen is a real audience.

School Report mentoring is a great way to meet the audience for ��̳ staff whose jobs are usually office-based

That energy continued into News Day and all the way through it. The students produced an incredible range of news; from written articles, to radio pieces, to TV bulletins and even a photo gallery. There were funny stories revealing the secret lives of teachers and more serious ones about the issues close to the students’ hearts.

I even managed to convince a few students to get technical and produce infographics using a coding tool provided by School Report. I was impressed by the quality of what they produced in just a day – most of it was far superior to anything I could have done!

When you meet the students, they have so many questions about anyone who works for the ��̳ – the best ones are how did I get the job and how much do I earn.

Being a mentor was rewarding in many ways. I got to connect with an audience that I rarely have any contact with, I learned a lot about what it takes to make the news and I even went some way to conquering a fear of speaking to groups.

But by far the most rewarding thing about it was having a chance to get out of the office and try and inspire the next generation of broadcasters. It’s a unique chance to show young people what this industry can offer them.

New term for ��̳ School Report

2016-09-16T11:36:30+00:00

Sharon Stokes sets out her vision for ��̳ School Report and the exciting developments for its eleventh year.

'We need to engage better with young people, and School Report is at the centre of that'

I have a confession to make. Until I took the job as head of School Report I’d never worked on the project before. I’d never volunteered to be a mentor or got involved with news day, apart from running a piece on a programme I was producing.

So why, after almost 17 years in the ��̳, have I got involved? And why do I think other people should too – especially if they never have?

��̳ School Report gives 11-16 year olds the chance to make the news for real

I was a teenager when I decided I wanted to be a journalist, after doing a week’s work experience on my local newspaper. I’ve always loved story-telling and meeting people, and finding out about their lives.

I’ve spent much of my career in radio – and have a real passion for personal stories. It’s real people that make news interesting.

Apart from being a journalist, I'm mum to a 14 year old and a 12 year old. Like most people their age they are never off their phones – yet never make a phone call! They’re the generation of Snapchat and Instagram, of downloading and uploading, and even creating their own content.

If I’m honest, they consume very little ��̳ content (although ��̳ Sport and Radio 1 still cut through with them both). They’re not unusual for their age.

We know the ��̳ needs to reach more young people. So how does the ��̳ engage this generation with our news content?

For the past 10 years School Report has engaged with thousands of 11-16 year olds. It’s a project which gives them a voice and helps to develop their skills. One the ��̳’s objectives for this year, set by Director General Tony Hall, is to transform what we do for younger audiences.

And this is a particularly exciting time to engage with this age group. As I say, they don’t just consume content digitally – they create it too. They have plenty to say about the world they live in and the things affecting their lives, and they have stories to tell.

In every department I’ve spoken to since taking this job – they all know they need to engage better with young people. And I see School Report’s future as being at the centre of that. To help engage even more youngsters we’ve made some exciting changes to the project.

Firstly it is now year-round. We’ll be actively seeking stories from young people and engaging them in our content and big editorial moments throughout the school year – starting now.

We’re also opening up School Report so individual children can send us their stories ideas, outside of school. To help us to do this we are creating a School Report Uploader so from next month young people, and schools can send us their ideas directly – as text, video from their phones, audio or pictures.

Later this year we are launching “School Report - The Pitch”. We’ll be inviting schools and young people to send us stories they feel are relevant to their lives, but they feel the ��̳ isn’t telling. These will be put before a panel of editors from programmes across the ��̳ who will each commission a story for their output, and work with that young person to bring their story to our audiences.

So why get involved in School Report? Because it’s all about finding amazing stories, inspiring a new generation and engaging them in what we do – while learning something from them. These youngsters are our future audience – and they could be our future colleagues. You might just help inspire another teenager to embark on a career in the media.

��̳ School Reporters at Coventry questioned the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, today. The event was shown on the Victoria Derbyshire programme on ��̳ Two and the News Channel.

Read about ��̳ School Reporters meeting the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, in a blog by the ��̳'s economics editor Kamal Ahmed and about Mark Carney's toughest day, on the ��̳ news website.

Rachael Smith - School Report Mentoring

2016-08-09T14:51:51+00:00

When Rachael Smith dreamt aged 14 of being a journalist, it seemed unreachable. Now she is a ��̳ School Report mentor encouraging the next generation.

‘I knew instantly that I had to be a mentor’

Nine years ago I walked into my first school not knowing what to expect. I was Miss Smith and not Rachael, and I was ��̳ the brand rather than just a journalist. I met my teacher and shook her hand: ‘we are on this journey together,’ I said.

Signing up to be a mentor for School Report was an easy decision for me. The reason for this goes back to when I was 14 years-old and in my careers office being asked ‘What is it you want to do?’ I knew my answer was in something creative but I couldn’t sing, dance or act that well. What I could do was talk and so I thought the best place for me was in reporting.

At 14 years old, the thought of me working for the ��̳ seemed like an unreachable dream and so when I finally got a job as a journalist I was thankful to see that ��̳ School Report existed and I knew instantly that I had to be a mentor.

Volunteering as a mentor is a rewarding two-way experience. I get to keep my skills fresh and I learn and develop new skills whilst schools I work with get to develop in a variety of ways.

One school I’ve worked with has gone from not knowing what School Report is to running a year-long journalism group, where school reporters work as mentors to younger pupils. Pupils from this school are continually seeing the benefit of journalism as part of their learning; so much so that one ex-School Report pupil was accepted on a highly-competitive US journalism exchange programme.

Some schools I have worked with are classed as hard-to-reach, which means that they are schools in communities that may not be accessed by the ��̳ in other ways. What it means for me, as a mentor, is that I have to be mindful of the complexities that a teacher has to consider when taking on a project like School Report - factors to consider, be that financial, social or cultural.

Before I visit a school I discuss expectations with the teacher on the phone so that they know who I am; what I can do and also I can hear a little about their concerns or queries. Each school has their own unique way of working and this means the guidance I provide the teacher or support worker can vary depending on their needs. It may mean looking at different ways that the pupils can tell the story they want to or finding creative ways of running news day on a tight budget.

If I make a school visit I will usually run a session with pupils that encourages them to think about what story they want to tell and show them how easy it is to find a news story if you look for one.

School Report has given me the opportunity to work with schools on some fantastic stories: from showing knife crime through animation, running a ��̳ Question Time style panel discussion during an election year, through to watching the 2012 Olympic torch being made and interviewing Lord Coe.

If you think School Report produces ‘soft news’ I would challenge you to take some time to really listen to the pupils involved and you’ll see they have as many similar concerns as us adults.

I am always joyfully surprised by the focus and dedication of the schools involved in School Report. I am looking forward to being a mentor in 2016/17 and I know my 14-year-old self would be proud.

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