BBC Schools Report 2009

BBC News School Report

News Report Timetable

EXAMPLE NEWS DAY TIMETABLE

Start time	End time	Session	School Reporter role	Mentor role
09:00	09:10	Briefing	Understand plan for day, safety arrangements	Brief School Reporters (SRs) on health and safety
09:10	09:45	Find	Research news stories
09:45	10:00	News meeting	Feedback story ideas
10:00	11:00	Gather	Conduct interviews, film, record, take photographs, make graphics	Allocate SR roles e.g. reporter, camera operator, sound operator, director, photographer
11:00	12:00	Write	Write scripts and reports
12:00	13:00	Assemble	Edit, add photographs and graphics to words
13:00	14:00	Order	Suggest order of news stories
14:00	15:00	Broadcast	Present
15:00	15:20	De-brief meeting	Take on board feedback
15:20	16:00	Publish	Upload reports to school website

Only use children's FIRST names
Don't report anything which makes you uncomfortable
Report the facts, NOT rumours
Report both sides of the story
Avoid crime stories
Only use YOUR OWN photos, music etc

NEWS DAY TIMETABLE

9.30

Students gather together for an introduction to the day and another chance to view the Huw Edwards video on finding the news.

Run-down of the safety rules for the day and recap of the news values, who the audience is, what counts as news, the three Cs and the five Ws.

10.00

Students move to computer rooms. They have half an hour to find news, from sources such as the internet and newspapers, but also from their school or local community. Students write their research on "News Story Idea" sheets, which contain the headings:

What happened?
Who was involved?
Where did it happen?
When did it occur?
Why did it happen?
Where did you find this news (sources)?

10.30

Editorial meeting, where a representative from each group, referring to the "News Story Idea" sheets, pitches for the inclusion of their stories. The meeting decides whether each story is:

• In - interesting, important etc - or out - not current, legally tricky, etc

• Best suited to radio or to TV , depending on the availability of visual material etc

During this meeting, the remaining students recap gathering news using activities from lesson 2.

Six students are chosen for the TV production team, and sent for training with the technical crew. The jobs are: camera operators, grips and vision mixers.

11.00

Small teams of students, are given:

A format, either TV or radio
A section of the final broadcast e.g. national news, community news
One or two in stories

Working on stories, which may not have been their original ideas, students:

Research the stories on the "News Story Idea" sheets in more detail
Gather facts (5 Ws), quotations, interviews, background information e.g. statistics
Gather digital material e.g. vox pops, images
Tell each other their stories verbally
Write a script which includes a hand-over over to the next team
Practise presenting their script

Groups working in radio may begin to record and edit their bulletin as soon as they like.

13.00

Students working on the TV bulletin meet up with the technical teams in the studio, while those working in radio start to focus on editing or assembling their bulletin.

The sections of the TV broadcast are recorded as live, with any false starts edited out afterwards.

During the edit, pre-recorded segments are inserted to cover the changeover of students between sections.

14.00

Webmasters publish the completed broadcasts to the website by 16.00.

Students review their work and complete evaluations.

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BBC News School Report

EXAMPLE NEWS DAY TIMETABLE