Students tackle tricky teen issues

Peter, Daniel and Ben getting ready to film

Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and some school reporters in Maidenhead decided to look into the issue.

Boys at Desborough High School didn't shy away from the sensitive subject but instead researched it fully to find out different points of view before pulling their script together.

They took editorial guidance from their School Report mentors and also took advice on the topic from their PSHE teachers.

School Reporters Peter and Charlie wrote about their day's reporting.

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Reporting on teenage pregnancy and sex
By Peter and Charlie
School Reporters, Desborough School, Maidenhead

For BBC School Report we decided to produce a television package on why the teenage pregnancy rates in the UK were so high and why boys in Britain are having underage sex.

Peter and Charlie

We started by researching Information about contraceptives and protection. After 30 minutes our journalistic guru Rebecca Williams arrived.

She taught us loads of skills we needed to be good journalists, like balancing arguments and working fast!

Script changes

A few hours after Rebecca arrived we had a good grasp of the subject so we started to write questions that would be asked to our interviewees the following day.

Later on Rebecca helped us write the script for the broadcast, it took a long time as the story frequently changed.

Learning about the camera equipment

Pete Clifton, head of BBC Online, is our School Report Mentor. He is going to help out on the News Day and he also came along to give tips and advice on the script.

The next day started with the arrival of Jane Winder, a professional camerawoman from the BBC.

She gave us advice on how to use the camera correctly. Jane started to record the interviews, firstly with the headmaster then with the NHS sexual heath promoter and lastly our schools PSHE teachers Ms Barry and Mr Torrent.

Interesting results

After lunch we learned that it was not going to be easy, having to do numerous takes with our anchormen, who were struggling with their lines.

Daniel, Matthew and Karan getting ready to go on film

Eventually after a few more takes they got there.

Then a few reporters were sent down to Maidenhead train station to quiz pedestrians using our questionnaire and they got some interesting results.

At the end of the day we thanked Rebecca and Jane for their help.

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