Over the past few weeks, a pilot group of primary 6 pupils from St John’s have been developing their journalism skills, reporting on what has been happening in the school in the past month. This is part of a larger project in the school which will see all of the primary 6 pupils involved in reporting the school news in a number of ways during the course of the year.
The team of Newshounds began their journalism lessons by looking at a number of publications including local and national newspapers and a variety of magazines. They learned about fonts and graphic design with a view to putting their knowledge into practice in the development of their own newspaper for the school. Over a number of weeks they collected news from each class, and collated the stories, deciding what to include in the newspaper, and what to leave out.
Working on Pages, part of the Apple iWork suite, the pupils began to put together the newspaper in a half-day workshop last week. The pupils decided they wanted to include sections on “What we’re learning” and “What we’re doing”, providing information on the work and activities of each class in the school.
The final stage in the publication process was carried out yesterday as the pupils proofed the newspaper. Their publication will go to print this morning and will be distributed to all pupils in the school later today.
The pupils wanted to make sure that in addition to print copies, there would be an electronic version available to download. You can download the November issue of St John’s Primary Newshounds here (right-click or control-click to download to your computer). It’s 25mb so it may take some time to download. To view the newsletter you require Adobe Reader (PC/Mac) or Preview (Mac).
December Update
For December’s edition of Newshounds, the production team increased in size as each of the pupils involved took on an “apprentice”. The pupils worked in pairs to research and write each article and to bring together the images and content required for this month’s edition. Download December’s edition of St John’s Newshounds here.
