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If you are taking part in School Report, you will be learning how to find, gather, write, assemble, order and broadcast the news during lessons.
Why not put the skills you have learnt into practice and try some of the reporting activities on this page?
You can do this on a practice News Day or at a time which suits you better.
The more you practise making the news, the easier - and the quicker - it becomes.
READ THE NEWS
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NEWS QUIZZES
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Become familiar with news and current affairs by reading local and national newspapers. Look on trusted news websites and tune into radio and television news.
A fun way to test yourself is to take a news quiz.
If you bookmark these web pages, remember to refresh the page each time to make sure your are taking the latest quiz.
Keeping up with the news and what's happening in the world will also increase your general knowledge.
REPORTING GAMES
The Press Pack website allows you to practise your journalism skills by playing reporting games, and taking interactive tutorials and quizzes.
CONDUCT INTERVIEWS
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a different area, to go to another school, to be part of an alternative culture?
There's an easy way to find out. Ask.
Interviewing is just asking a series of questions.
Choose someone you would like to know more about. It could be a relative, a classmate, a friend outside school, a teacher, a member of a club or someone in the local community.
Ask them open questions, beginning with what, who, where, when, why and how.
Record their answers. You could use a camera, a minidisc recorder, a mobile phone or a notebook.
News is about presenting answers in a clear and fair way to other people. Show someone the best bits of your interview, making sure you haven't twisted the meaning of the answers, and you've made news.
If you are interviewing several people, try to gather a range of views. Asking 10 teenage skaters if they want a board park doesn't make a balanced report; and it's boring listening to or reading about people expressing the same opinion!
REPORTING SCHOOL EVENTS
Try reporting something happening at your schools, such as:
- A school play or concert
- A fundraising event
- A sporting event
- A school trip or activity week
- A new school building or initiative
- A School Report (practice) News Day
Plan ahead
Daily news programmes are a mixture of news reports that have been made that day and features created in advance.
Look at your school diary. What events have been planned for the year? Some of them might make good stories. Why not report on one of these events?
REPORTING YOUR PATCH
You could report on event happening in your area, such as a charity fundraiser or an issue local people are talking about.
Read local newspapers and news websites. Listen to and watch local radio and TV news to find out what's happening close to where you live.
TV, RADIO OR ONLINE?
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EXAMPLES AND RESOURCES
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If you're new to reporting, it's a good idea to begin by creating a written report with photographs. Look at these online reports for inspiration.
Remember to use photographs to illustrate your story, and to add captions.
Take the photographs yourself so you can be sure you are not breaking copyright law.
If you have several photographs, you could make a picture gallery. Have a look at the BBC News and Newsround websites for inspiration.
Why not turn your photographs into a photo story slideshow. The BBC's 60 Second Shakespeare has an easy-to-follow guide.
If you are feeling confident why not make a radio or TV report. You could borrow equipment from school or use your mobile phone. You will still have to write the report - but as a script - which is designed to be read out loud.
Have a look at Script-writing tips and real examples to see how BBC journalists write scripts
Using the script template, in which you write one word per cell, will help you work out how long your report will be.
BROADCAST YOUR REPORT
News reports are designed for an audience.
Once you have created your report, you need to broadcast it, which means displaying it somewhere so that the information you have gathered can be seen, read or heard by other people.
If you are taking part in School Report, you will be publishing your reports on your schools website. But why stop there? Here are some more broadcasting ideas:
- Publish your report in your school newsletter or newspaper
- Broadcast it on your school radio or TV programme
- Read it out to a few people from your form or the whole class during a tutor period
- Read it out during an assembly (see below)
- Bluetooth it to your friends and family
- Pin your report on a school notice board
- Send it to your local news website, newspaper, TV or radio station (see below)
- Send it to the School Report team (see below)
Check with your teacher before you do any of these and ask them if they have any more ideas.
SEND YOUR REPORT TO THE SCHOOL REPORT TEAM
The School Report team are looking for students' TV and radio reports to broadcast on the BBC; on local, regional or even national TV and radio. It may also be broadcast on School Report's own TV web channel and radio station, on the News Day in March.
Choosing topics which interest you AND students around the UK, will increase the chance of a piece being broadcast by the BBC. And by making it now, you will have a ready-made-feature "in the bag" for the UK-wide News Day.
Here are some questions which might inspire you, or better still, prompt you to think of your own news topics:
- How do you travel to school each day? What are the good and bad points about this means of transport?
- How clean are the streets in your area? What can be done tackle the problem of litter?
If you are interested in making a report for BBC TV or radio, please ask your teacher to let us know via the Contact us page (see link, top left) or e-mail schoolreport@bbc.co.uk.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept e-mails from people under 16, so you need to do this via your teacher.
INFORM YOUR LOCAL PAPER
Local newspapers are always looking to cover interesting events such as School Report News Day.
However, journalists are often busy and don't have the time to visit your school.
Why don't you take the initiative and write the story for them. That way your school stands a good chance of appearing in the paper?
Newspapers often refer to stories sent in by the public as press releases - they are details about an event released to the press.
You might find some good tips in this guide:
Your press release should contain the facts - what, who, where, when and why - and opinions. These can be in the form of quotations from your classmates and teachers. Try to get a balance of opinions.
Don't forget to attach photographs with captions. Take the photographs yourself so you can be sure you are not breaking copyright law.
Before you send your press release to your local paper, double check what you have written to make sure all your facts are correct.
SCHOOL ASSEMBLY
Tell the students in another year group about School Report during an assembly.
Talk about the skills you learnt, such as researching stories, gathering facts and opinions, writing scripts, operating equipment, editing reports and presenting them to an audience.
Share some of the tips you picked up along the way.
Not only will this be of interest to the students listening to your presentation, it is also a great way to refresh your memory without having to "go back and do it again". Next time you report the news, you will be able to go forward, refining techniques and developing new skills.
TALK TO A JOURNALIST
Invite a journalist to your school and ask them about their job. Many regional BBC TV and radio stations have staff who work closely with schools in the area, as do local newspapers.
Why not ask your teacher to help you arrange a visit to a local newspaper, radio or TV station.
You'll be able to see how a real newsroom operates and staff might even share some tricks of the trade!
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