��̳ 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.

Lesson for the teacher

2017-02-28T17:50:01+00:00

Delia Lloyd describes how an unforeseen event during a storytelling workshop became the lesson itself.

‘This woman did so much more for our storytelling session than a thousand more examples could have done’

I’ve taught classes and run workshops for much of my adult life, so in some ways I shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened during a storytelling workshop with ��̳ Outreach recently. Still, it was a helpful reminder of that age-old adage - “the best laid schemes of mice and men” – that even the most carefully prepared plans can go wrong.

The workshop was for Migrant Voice, a London-based charity that works to strengthen the voice, participation and representation of migrants in the media. I was there with a colleague to deliver a day-long workshop entitled “Communication for Change,” which provided participants with a series of storytelling tools that can be used to create change.

We both work for ��̳ Media Action, the ��̳’s international development charity - which uses media and communication to foster good governance, health lives and resilient communities in the world’s most fragile settings. So this seemed like a fairly straightforward assignment.

We decided to begin the session with some examples of good storytelling in order to get the class thinking about the basic elements of a good story, things like emotion, concision, suspense, irony, and so on. We’d carefully selected four examples we were going to use in advance so that each one demonstrated a different technique or set of techniques.

One was a film about the use of technology by migrants in the most recent refugee crisis. A second was a very funny New York Times essay written by a woman explaining how she used animal training skills on her husband in order to make her marriage work better. But it was when we got to our third story –a Ted Talk done by a person suffering from Conversion Disorder (a debilitating illness that impairs normal activity) - that the whole training session got turned on its head.

Turns out, unbeknownst to us, a member of the group had been diagnosed with Conversion Disorder. Seeing the video upset her so much that she had to leave the room in order to gather her composure. For a few minutes, the entire training session came to a standstill. When she came back into the room, we weren’t sure quite what to expect. Would she yell at us? Tell us we’d been insensitive? Cry?

Instead, she did the most amazing thing. She told us her story: why she’d been diagnosed with this condition, what her daily suffering meant in terms of her complex medical care, how all of that linked to being a migrant here in the UK and - most importantly for her - the belief that this condition could be overcome. One workshop participant began to cry.

We never got to our fourth storytelling example. We didn’t need to. In opening up and speaking honestly about her illness, her journey and her identity as a migrant with this disease, this woman did so much more for our storytelling session than a thousand more examples could have done.

The moral of this story is that sometimes it pays to throw away the outline. As a trainer, you can plan all you like, but it’s often the unforeseen moment that completely upends your lesson plan that proves the most teachable and the most resonant. Equally, this was also a healthy reminder that the most powerful and resonant stories often come not from the teacher, but from the students.

Bransholme at 50

2017-02-28T17:45:18+00:00

Helen Amess has been working with the team at ��̳ Look North and ��̳ Radio Humberside to launch an outreach project to celebrate a housing estate on the outskirts of Hull as it celebrates its 50th birthday.

‘Every single person was unfailing in their pride about living on Bransholme’

It’s a story which has been repeated in so many of the UK’s cities - World War II left a large swathe of Hull’s centre destroyed by bombing and the condition of the remaining housing meant much of it was uninhabitable.

So it was decided to create a new estate on the edge of city where there would be modern housing and a better quality of life for the people who lived there. And that’s how the Bransholme estate, on the northern outskirts of Hull, was built in 1967.

Now Bransholme has reached its 50th birthday; it’s fair to say the estate’s had its fair share of issues over the years – many people were initially homesick for the inner-city communities they left behind and the quality of the first phase of housing didn’t meet everyone’s expectations. But as the years have passed, the estate has flourished.

It was a Thursday morning when I made my first visit a few months ago, yet the North Point shopping centre (in the middle of the estate) was busy and its cafés were full. Outside, vehicles jostled for a place in the centre’s expanse of car park.

��̳ Look North and ��̳ Radio Humberside plan to celebrate Bransholme’s golden anniversary with the people who live there and because it coincides with Hull being the UK’s City of Culture, there is even more of a focus on the estate and the people who live there.

In partnership with ��̳ Outreach, they have commissioned Bransholme at 50, a film which will feature somebody from the estate who has a link with each of the 50 years since 1967 – it could be the year they were born or the year they arrived to live in Bransholme; for others it will be the year they opened a business on the estate or the year they started one of the local schools.

It was a pleasure to join the local ��̳ team as they spent the day in Bransholme with the ��̳ Radio Humberside bus which is out on the road every day throughout 2017 to mark the City of Culture – Radio Humberside’s Phil White presents his show each weekday from the bus. Our aim was to find more people who have a story to tell about living on the Bransholme estate.

It was a cold, grey and slightly damp January day when the bus pulled into North Point’s car park and I remember feeling slightly concerned that everyone would be making a mad dash between their heated cars and the warm shopping centre and no-one would have the inclination to spend anytime chatting to us on the bus.

But I was wrong!

A steady stream of people came to speak to us, each with their own tale of what Bransholme means to them. We heard the story of a local minister who came from Sierra Leone to study in Hull and loved it so much that he stayed and opened a church on the estate.

We met some primary school children from one of Bransholme’s primary schools who had always lived in the area and were full of dreams and aspirations for their future. And every single person we spoke to was unfailing in their pride about living in Bransholme and none of them had any desire to ever live anywhere else.

At the end of the day I left the estate and travelled back to Hull city centre with my mind buzzing with memories of all the people I had just met. If the people I met on the bus offered just a taste of the people who feature in the film, then Bransholme at 50 will be a fascinating way to celebrate the estate’s 50th birthday.

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’.

Olivia Lockyer - the big issue of induction

2017-01-14T20:07:53+00:00

Olivia Lockyer volunteered with ��̳ Outreach to help Big Issue North produce an induction film for vendors.

'It was fantastic to be able to experience and learn new skills'

I felt lucky to work with the ��̳ Outreach team on a project with Big Issue North. We were helping the magazine by making a film for new vendors and office staff to illustrate what it takes to be a vendor and how to operate on the pitch.

This included planning the storyboard for the film, directing the shoot and then editing the film. We also ran a workshop about making content for online and social media to help the Big Issue North outreach team to make their own videos on their phones.

Olivia during filming with one of the Big Issue North vendors

I work for a team called ��̳ Make it Digital doing a number of different things but mainly producing digital content and working with external partners to help audiences to get creative with digital.

I have always thought the work of Big Issue was brilliant and although Big Issue & Big Issue North are separate entities, their values and principles are very similar. I know how easy it is to be in a position where because of work, relationship or health issues you are at risk of losing your home – I find it a shock to see some people’s attitudes to people on the street.

I feel the Big Issue concept fulfils an important need for work when, without a fixed address, this can often be a hard thing to find.

We worked with some brilliant people as part of the project and it was great to meet such a range of interesting people.

We filmed with one particular vendor who had done acting work and starred in production, he was hilarious as he had these amazing catch phrases that he’d say like “The sun is out, the sky blue, why not buy a big issue”.

It was horrifying, though, to hear from some of the sellers about some of the abuse vendors have experienced during their time selling and on the street. Very sobering to hear, and made me realise the importance to them of the Big Issue North outreach team.

As I have only worked in digital production it was fantastic to be able to experience and learn new skills in film production.

We learnt skills in shooting a film, storyboarding and got to be part of the editing process which was really interesting to see and great to see everything come together!

I feel so lucky to have worked with such amazing people on this project, from ��̳ Outreach, Big Issue North, the vendors as well as the other Outreach volunteers from the ��̳ on the project.

It was a brilliant experience and hope that I can do something similar again soon.

Elaina Boateng - reaching full potential

2017-01-14T17:21:19+00:00

Elaina Boateng shared her own career journey as she co-hosted an evening to inspire young people from Hackney looking for their big breaks in the world of work.

‘This ��̳ outreach project taught me the importance of diverse recruitment’

��̳ Outreach’s event is one of the most rewarding and entertaining I have been a part of since I began my career at the ��̳, three years ago.

I have always been passionate about helping young people reach their full potential. As a graduate of Mama Youth Project, a charity that helps BAME 18s-25s get into the media industry, I have seen the impact the charity has had on my career, by installing self-belief in me, so this is something I am determined to pass onto my generation of BAME professionals.

The project gave young volunteers from Hackney CVS the opportunity to plan their own employability event to be held in New Broadcasting House, and with the help of ��̳ staff volunteers as facilitators.

We met up with the young people to plan what elements they wanted to include in the event, who the key speakers for them would be, and how to best meet their expectations.

Monthly meetings made for a great event which involved food, performances, workshops in CV and personal branding, plus keynote speakers Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth and entrepreneur Florence Adepoju.

I had the privilege of co-hosting this in the 4th floor collaboration zone, which was transformed into a vibrant careers event with over 40 young people there. My co-host, Sade Okusi. one of the talent scouts from Hackney CVS, helped me lead it with confidence and high energy. After expressing how nervous she was before the event began, it was rewarding to see her flourish as it went on.

As the first event I have ever co- hosted; I was certainly stretched and challenged to keep it lively, engaging for a diverse audience and more importantly, on time. Additionally, running the ‘my brand’ workshop for the young people helped us all see how useful the device of a newspaper front page was a practical means to outline our skills. We all left with our own ‘newspaper headline’ to sell ourselves – ��̳ people as well as the guests.

Since the event, I am still in touch with some of the young people and I hope to be able to contribute to more of their personal events and enterprises in the future.

As a production coordinator by day, I help to recruit work experience, runners and production management assistants. Working with the young people of this ��̳ Outreach project has taught me the importance of diverse recruitment, to help create television content that represents our diverse country.

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.

Dreams and determination

2016-12-02T09:49:42+00:00

Anthony Williams drew on his determination and dream of working in the media to coach and inspire young adults from Hackney to realise their own ambitions. He helped plan and run an event with young adults to take a fresh look at their employability.

‘They could relate to my perseverance not to give up on my dreams to work in the media’

I have a passion to reach out to our younger diverse audiences within my role. The ��̳ Outreach event with Hackney CVS - called ‘��̳ Link Up’ - was designed for young adults to understand the different job roles within the ��̳ and for them to meet some staff and find out how they gained their roles.

I was a facilitator, helping young people with CV coaching, telling them about my journey, and acting out a hiring role in a mock job interview.

The most challenging parts of this project were to create something that would be informative as well as entertaining, and bringing together the visions inside and outside the ��̳ for it.

I volunteered to meet up for some evenings with Hackney CVS to rehearse with the team. The scenario of a mock interview at the ��̳ changed as we developed it – even changing on the day of the event. Using my improvisation skills, I was able to develop a fun yet informative role play for our audience to observe and feedback on.

Anthony, second right, at the ��̳ Link Up with Hackney CVS

It involved creating an interview with a ‘candidate’, based upon his good-versus-bad body language and engagement during interviews. Our young people observed and gave their thoughts on his different styles. I learned more about young people during the CV Clinic, and I believe I provided them with vital coaching in order for them to create a compelling CV.

I was also able to grasp what their feelings are towards major broadcasters such as the ��̳. Some said they never thought they could work for the ��̳ as it seemed so corporate. This was challenged during the event through discussions and through meeting new ��̳ colleagues such as apprentices, and by having Charlie Sloth from ��̳ 1Xtra talking about his story.

A mass selfie moment with Charlie Sloth

The most rewarding moment for me was to share with nearly 50 people my inspirational story of how I managed to obtain my role at the ��̳ after many unsuccessful attempts. I must say that some audience members were very emotional about this, as they could relate to my perseverance to not give up on my dreams to work within the media industry.

I believe I have learnt a lot about young people and I hope to pass this on to ��̳ Comedy with regard to developing shows that appeal to our younger audiences, and which could potentially start with ��̳ Three as our online channel.

Getting to the STEM of careers in the ��̳

2016-11-17T10:46:40+00:00

Marvin McKenzie and dozens of ��̳ STEM Ambassadors bring school subjects alive for hundreds of school pupils each year by showing them science, technology, engineering and maths at work in the ��̳. Marvin reflects on the latest STEM Challenge season.

'I felt inspired by all our staff who’d be able to gain valuable insights working with young people'

“Well, this isn’t gonna be an easy one, Marv,” were my first thoughts when I sat down to consider what I was setting out to achieve with ��̳ volunteers across the UK.

But 595 miles and 32 schools later I’m at the other side of what has been one of the most rewarding periods during my time working with ��̳ Outreach.

I manage the ��̳’s volunteer community of STEM ambassadors, who are members of staff sharing their skills and expertise to help young people gain a greater understanding of STEM careers in the ��̳.

They are some of the coolest people with some of the coolest roles, yet the average 12-14 year old has very little idea that their science, technology, engineering and maths subjects could lead to jobs like theirs in the media.

A STEM challenge underway

In each city where we hold a STEM challenge, we invite around 10 schools to join us for a morning of careers exploration. As the STEM events had become so popular, we - well, I - agreed to do a mini tour of the UK for October.

When I first said it out loud, travelling the UK to spread the gospel of STEM sounded amazing in principle - a real opportunity to get the message out to schools that the ��̳ is a place for all. I felt inspired by all our staff who’d be able to gain valuable insights working with young people.

Planning for events with over 30 schools, recruiting the volunteers to support the students, and then finding spaces to deliver events of this scale, all to the ��̳’s quality hallmarks, seemed a big challenge. Each site visit gives the students around 10 STEM challenges, including weather forecasting, news deployment planning, budgeting for a TV channel, coding, user-testing games and apps, design and engineering, and sound effects. Every venue gives its own special flavour of the output and skills on site.

So, first stop Birmingham. A great turn out of STEM ambassadors, plus special presentations from the city's resident Digital Guerrillas. Birmingham really set the standard for what we would go on to deliver at the next venues.

The Blue Room team continued their wonderful commitment to hard-to-reach audiences and went the extra (500) miles to make sure we had a mobile Blue Room set up in Glasgow matching our offer to the schools in England.

The ��̳ STEM Ambassadors are a truly amazing group of people, and so, so inspiring. Using their own career experiences, they each design and deliver practical challenges for the students to work on.

Thanks to ��̳ STEM ambassadors from Glasgow, London, Wood Norton, Birmingham and Salford, and with the brilliant Nick Wyatt & Sukhi Nagra all keeping things running logistically-smoothly, I’m pleased to say Outreach volunteers delivered some of the best youth engagement activities I have seen since being at the ��̳.

As much as it was a real reward to see ��̳ mentors sharing their skills engaging with young people, hearing the young people’s thoughts of the ��̳ and what they could do here was amazing.

A teenage boy in Glasgow said to me: "Hey Marvin, just wanted to say this is brilliant I wish I knew about this before"; a teenage girl in Birmingham said: “Wow this is so cool, you must really love your job.”

I smiled broadly and said, “Yep, I love it.” Bringing ��̳ staff together with hard-to reach-audiences and showing both sides that they have loads to teach each other - what’s not to love about that!

Going to the heart of Black and British

2016-11-16T21:14:20+00:00

Hermeet Chadha took part in a ��̳ Outreach workshop with young adults in preparation for radio debates on ��̳ Radio 1Xtra exploring the Black British experience.

‘There is nothing like face to face interaction with the audience’

I'm a producer at ��̳ Radio 1Xtra. I currently work on the MistaJam Show which is the gateway specialist show for new music. My job mostly involves listening to music and suggesting tracks to be played on the show. I also have to book guests and organise the whole programme and come up with ideas for features, mixes and specials.

1Xtra is an urban music station which essentially means it's a station rooted in black music and black culture. We aim to appeal to a diverse audience and therefore it's important to be in touch with this audience as much as possible.

Meeting people from diverse backgrounds helps us as programme makers to understand both the culture and the music our audience responds to so we can adequately reflect these on air.

The ��̳ is running a major season in November 2016, Black and British, exploring the Black British experience and its impact on Britain as a whole. As part of the season 1Xtra will be broadcasting a radio debate about what it means to be Black and British.

I’m looking after this debate with my colleagues, so decided to ask John Offord, ��̳ Outreach Manager, to help us arrange a workshop with some of the young people he works with, to test out some questions that we proposing for a forthcoming series of radio debates on 1Xtra.

Hermeet, left, working on radio debate ideas with some members of Hackney CVS

John brought together a group of around 12 young adults from Hackney CVS. Hackney CVS supports hundreds of people to run successful community organisations by giving them access to the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to respond to the needs of local people.

During the workshop we talked about what they're interested in, who they'd like to hear from on this topic, and the issues that they're debating with their friends. We tested the questions we had already identified for the debates and asked whether they would tune in/click to listen?

Questions such as: "how important is US influence on Black culture in the UK and how does the UK set itself apart?" We were not only able to pose our questions and get open and honest feedback from the youngsters, but they also made suggestions which had not occurred to us previously.

Some of these suggestions have influenced how our debate is going to pan out. It's great to see examples like this, where audience insight helps us shape content for broadcast. It is in effect, true Outreach.

As a thank you, we invited them all back to see the live debate show being broadcast on 16th November, hosted by Ace and Bridgitte Tetteh, and featuring a panel with Murkage Dave, Judi Love and Charmaine Hayden, and live performance.

Whilst we pride ourselves at being at the forefront of youth culture here at 1Xtra it’s not always possible to know what issues and concerns are affecting people half your age, so this exercise was invaluable and practical. I would certainly work with the ��̳ Outreach team again and I would encourage other members of production to do so too. There is nothing like face to face interaction with the audience. It’s something we need to do more of.

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.

The Greater Manchester Youth Network

2016-10-12T19:16:03+00:00

Peter Tat volunteered to work with a group of young adults to produce a short film celebrating the work of the Greater Manchester Youth Network. The charity provides opportunities for young people and supports youth organisations that work in Greater Manchester.

‘It was a real privilege to hear the young people tell us about the tough situations they'd been through’

I’d always fancied volunteering but I’d always found an excuse not to go through with it. Most of the time I'd say to myself I was too busy.

As my attachment with the amazing Blue Peter film team started to draw to an end, I saw a small poster offering the chance to be a volunteer film maker for ��̳ Outreach. It was perfect chance for me to put together everything I’d learnt about making short films.

Having left News a few years back, I'd not worked with disadvantaged young people for a while. I definitely needed to chat to them as individuals again.

I knew my summer involved making lots of big, medium and small Blue Peter films across the country, doing what's known as a Hot Shoes work placement, then returning to my substantive post in Bristol and also generally trying to have a personal life. So it was probably the worst time to try and make two outreach films.

But I decided to make them part of my summer and I’m so glad I did.

Having just finished the edit for a film about YMCA Bolton in Bristol at 6pm, I jumped on a train to Manchester to make a second film with the Greater Manchester Youth Network.

GMYN were having a change in staff so whilst we knew we had a shoot date we didn't yet know who'd be turning up and what activities they'd be doing.

That said, the young people did get the chance to attend an ideas session previously with my colleague, Becky Bailey, a researcher at C��̳. Becky shared her camera and storytelling skills with the group and then the young people gave me suggestions of what to include in the short film. Hearing how GMYN had helped turn some of the young people’s lives around was inspirational to say the least.

They were also in the process of simplifying their mission statement so it was hard to define easily what they did. This made asking the question "what's the story and how will I treat it" difficult, along with having every piece of kit to suit the job.

On the morning of the shoot the chief executive told us that GMYN had recently defined four key strands that will be fundamental to every project it runs. This gave me the idea to structure the film around theses strands to give the whole thing some shape.
Knowing that the young people weren't going to be around all day meant we had to shoot in a "run and gun" style.

To become a better shooter I had taken up photography. I like to take a bit of time compose my shots like a photograph, organising people and objects in the frame. On this day there was little time for that and I had to shoot what I saw - "run and gun".

It's a cliché but it was a real privilege to hear the young people tell us about the tough situations they'd been through, and the most striking thing was how positive they have become. Just having someone to help allowed them to turn things around.

We got some great stuff and I can't wait to rough cut and get into the edit with it all.

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