Year 9 News Day

By Lauren Strangwood, Olivia Butler and Madeline Butler

A student’s work

On Tuesday, Year 9 made their way into the Theatre to take part in a new, intriguing challenge of producing a newspaper. As they were being briefed by the Deputy Editor of the Shropshire Star, Mark Drew, the atmosphere was filled with anticipation. In this challenge, students had to include a bold, bright front page, two inside stories; one about what was happening in and around school and another about what was happening in the world, such as The World Cup.

The year group was firstly split into different teams in various teaching spaces to begin their tasks. Within their groups they were split into different roles: Editor, News sub-editor, Layout sub-editor, three Reporters, two Photographers, TV presenters and two Proof readers to exercise censorship if necessary.

When interviewed, Lauryn Proudman and Bethan Parker- Minshall, explained that they were both photographers for the day. When questioned about what they thought of their jobs, they both answered: “It’s amazing and quite a lot of fun!” We also asked them about their opinion of the day overall. They felt it was a great chance to find out about different kinds of jobs working on a newspaper.

Madeline Butler said that she thought that “news day” was enjoyable as she could see lots of team work going on and people working really hard on their reports both in groups and also individually. The students worked in role full steam ahead throughout the day. Teachers were there more to observe rather than teach as the students immersed themselves efficiently producing impressive newspapers.

As well as creating a newspaper report students had to produce a two-minute live broadcast that would be shown to the rest of the year as it was recorded. The live broadcast had to consist of an advert for a business or an event coming up in the year. It also had to include a school-based story and a news broadcast. At 12:00 the first live report appeared on our screens.

People collaborating together

Olivia, Lauren and Madeleine

We asked Kieren Topping, one of the reporters on the recording, how he felt about the brodcast. “I was really nervous,”  he told us. We then asked him how he prepared for his perfomance. “I went down ten minutes early to where we were doing the broadcast so I didn’t have to keep looking at my script all the time.” Angel Bains was asked what she thought of the Live Broadcast happening throughout the day. ‘’It’s good, so people know what’s happening and can compare it to their own reports making sure they didn’t forget to add anything.”

Later in the day ,when questioned, Mrs Millwaters said “I was very proud to see students working as well as they were!” Mark Drew Deputy Editor for The Shropshire Star similarly said “I was impressed with the teamwork I saw during the day.”

A student carrying out research

This superb event culminated in a win for group 13 and their newspaper The Moon. The students in the group were Ryan Siverns, Katie Bedworth, Rio Grattan, Sam Hall, Dylan Hall, Danielle Harrison, Joe Hedges, Nicolas Hodgetts, Amber Jones, Billy Squires, Aimee Tromans and Lewis Walker. Ryan Siverns, who was the editor, said: “It was brilliant to win. We had a fantastic day!”