World news for children
Have we got too many dinosaurs? Have we got enough children’s voices? Does a story about eczema in the UK matter to youngsters in Tanzania? The kind of questions we’re tackling every day with BBC World News for Children. It’s a new audio news service for a new audience – children in the UK and around the world.
The bulletin grew out of the World Class project, which facilitates school twinning around the world. We realised that we could help twinning schools share ideas and communication by providing them with a “missing link”: shared News.
Radio News agreed to place an audio producer with Newsround. The result is a bulletin for kids in the UK, which goes out every morning Monday to Friday at 0756 on BBC7, and a slightly longer bulletin posted on the World Class and Newsround websites by lunchtime, with more international stories.
We work on the assumption that what interests kids in one part of the world is likely to be of interest to kids elsewhere. We try to tell it in a simple way but not shy away from some of the harder stories. We’re also trying to extend Newsround’s successful press packer format to kids all over the world.
So far the responses from kids themselves have been positive – we put up their comments on the Newsround website. But we’re keen to get more kids listening and sending in their audio reports – for more details have a look at our site.
There are big challenges - especially where children have poor access to the internet – but in a world with two billion people under 18 – that’s a massive audience to serve.


