Young journalists who won a national competition, have shared their news-making advice. Primary and secondary school pupils gathered at the House of Commons on Friday 29 June for the Times Education Supplement (TES) Newsday award ceremony.
Key Stage 3 winners who produced their own newspapers, websites and podcasts, were keen to pass on the wisdom of their experience.
Faye, 14, from The Norton School Humanities College in Stockton-on-Tees, said: "Keep your eyes and ears open. Follow up anything that sounds interesting. If you think it's interesting, most likely other people will too."
She contributed to her school's newspaper, the New Ancient, which won the Key Stage 3 prize, by producing a page of book and CD reviews.
She said: "It is a newspaper's job to inform people and reviews are a way of doing this."
The New Ancient was well received by people in the local community.
Emma, 14, said: "People loved it because there was such a variety of stories - something for everyone."
Debutants
 Top first-time entrants, St Margaret's School in Exeter |
St Margaret's School in Exeter, who entered their paper, Marguerite's Muse, scooped the Key Stage 3 award for schools for first-time participants. Head of ICT, Michele Ward, said; "We entered because we wanted to give the whole year an experience across all subjects, culminating in the application of their IT skills, with the added pressure that comes with making a newspaper."
Making decisions on newspaper content and meeting the print deadline were the two major challenges faced by Charlotte, 13, who took on the role of editor.
She said: "The front page of the newspaper had to look really good and make an impact. Meeting the 2pm print deadline was a challenge too. Over lunchtime things were tense because we thought we'd never meet it."
Charlotte had meetings with the news editor and sports editor at regular intervals throughout the day to "decide what had to be done and to divide up the jobs".
Sports editor Emily, 13, said: "It was important to cover a variety of stories on the back page of the newspaper and I thought carefully about what to include."
News editor Hannah, 13, said: "My job was to check up on my journalists. Some of them were writing similar articles, so I gave them some advice on how to make them different. Some people had copied a lot of information from the internet and I helped them re-write it in their own words."
Podcast
 Podcast winners, Rainham School for Girls in Kent |
The winners of the Key Stage 3 Podcast award were Rainham School for Girls in Kent. Emma, 14, said: "We wanted to make a podcast because it's a form of new technology. I'm more likely to listen to my MP3 player or read the news on a laptop than pick up a newspaper."
Students chose to cover a Red Nose Day event and a story about reception students studying French.
Parris, 14, said: "The Comic Relief event was happening on the day we made the podcast, so it was an obvious choice. Young children learning foreign languages has already been in the news and we thought it would be good topic to follow up."
Students allocated roles according to individual strengths.
Linzi, 14, said: "People who were good at talking to others, did the interviewing, while people who were good with computers edited the podcast."
'Multiple advantages'
Founder of the competition, Brian Robinson, said: "The benefits for each school are different: For some it's the motivation of writing for a real audience, for others it's the challenge of accomplishing a task in a day and meeting the deadlines, in other schools, the students derive the most benefit from taking responsibility."
A panel of judges, including TES journalists and designers, assessed more than 800 entries.
Since he launched the project 17 years ago, Brian estimates more than 300,000 students have been involved.
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As one of the judges I have loved reading about issues the students really care about
