From BBC News School Report class of 2010 to a job as a BBC journalist
Kris Bramwell
Assistant digital content producer with the BBC Academy
As a broadcast assistant working on BBC News School Report, Lauren Page (above) will be busy on Thursday helping schools across the country make a success of turning their classrooms into newsrooms. It’s the biggest day of the year for the BBC’s annual initiative to involve schools in journalism and there are particular efforts to make it special this year as the project celebrates its tenth anniversary.
For Lauren, it’s already special because of what happened with School Report six years ago. In 2010, the 12-year-old Lauren saw a presentation about the project at her school, William Howard in Brampton.
“We were all watching,” she remembers, “really eager to find out a little bit more. People from the year above were using cameras, interviewing people; it looked really exciting.”
At lunchtime Lauren went to a meeting, keen to get involved: “I feel incredibly lucky that my name got drawn out of the hat, otherwise I wouldn’t be a journalist today.”
On the day itself, Lauren turned newsgatherer, sourcing stories, phone bashing – “quite a full-on role for a 12-year-old”. She wrote a story about her dad and brother winning a competition to take their local football team on the England team bus for a trip around Carlisle. “Probably not my finest hour in journalism,” Lauren says today. “But everyone has to start somewhere!”
The aspiring reporter started watching Newsround, reading newspapers and focussing on her English lessons: creative writing, storytelling, newswriting. She’d take any opportunity to write things down and put what she learnt into practice with a music blog.
Not feeling her A Level grades were good enough for university, Lauren looked for another route into journalism. She found the local journalism apprenticeship at the BBC. To apply, one of the things she had to submit was a voice piece about herself.
“I was really ill when I recorded mine so I remember sounding quite husky and thinking I’d ruined my chances,” says Lauren. The 35th take was eventually the one she submitted.
But the husky voice made an impression and Lauren was offered the job as an apprentice broadcast assistant at BBC Radio Cumbria.
She got the news while sitting on a bus. “I remember getting quite teary. People were looking at me, wondering why I was crying and saying ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ over and over again. I remember thinking ‘this is my moment – this is the start of my career’.”
A “nerve-racking” first day followed with Lauren realising she was the youngest staff member by some distance at the station. “Every morning I’d come in with an idea and I’d sometimes have to force the idea down the editor’s throat asking, ‘please let me do a story on this.’”
Lauren is convinced that she made the right choice with her route into journalism.
“University isn’t the be all and end all; if it’s not for you there are other ways to get into your dream job. I came straight from school into the BBC and it’s taught me not to change who I am. An apprenticeship has also taught me to not be shy; talk to people and if you’re passionate about something, just keep on trying until you get there.”
In December 2015 Lauren’s story came full circle when she was offered a job as a broadcast assistant on School Report. So what is it like for a former school reporter to be working on the project as an adult?
“I absolutely love hearing from teachers about how enthusiastic the students are,” says Lauren (pictured below as a keen 12-year-old participant). “The young reporters get so excited about having their own School Report lanyards. I can still remember getting mine and feeling part of the BBC for the day.”
This Thursday (10 March) will be no different. “Students will be thinking like journalists, acting like journalists, sourcing stories. I’ve already been into schools where some of their stories are good enough to make it onto a BBC News programme.”
For the class of 2010, the idea of having a story on the internet was a huge deal, she recalls: “My nana in Essex could login and see it. That’s what School Report does – it gives students a chance to put out their stories. It’s a young person’s take on the news.”
Being back as a School Report ‘staffer’ is “quite surreal”: “Without School Report I’d have never considered becoming a journalist. I’d have never applied for an apprenticeship and I wouldn’t be in London, hundreds of miles from home, doing a job I absolutely love.
“Taking part in a project on one school day, off timetable, formed my career and who I am now.”
Applications will open for BBC apprenticeships starting in September 2016 on Monday, 14 March. This year, opportunities are available in production, digital storytelling, local technical operations, business, legal and digital.See our Get In Events page for more details.
BBC News School Report Mentor Training (available to BBC staff only)
