BBC News School Report

Pupils from Matthew Moss High School and St. Anne's Academy will be taking part in this year's BBC News School report on Thursday 26 March 2009.

Staff and pupils from both schools have already taken part in BBC News School Report 'practice days' and the CLC will be sending a film crew to Matthew Moss to document their activities throughout the day. St. Anne's Academy Year 9 students will be holding another practice session on Thursday 19 March and spend News Day itself at Middleton City Learning Centre, making the most of the state-of-the-art ICT facilities and TV studio.

What is BBC News School Report?

BBC News School Report gives 11-14 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience. Using lesson plans and materials from the BBC News Report website, and with support from BBC staff, teachers and CLC staff help students develop their journalistic skills and become School Reporters.

On 26 March 2009, schools will take part in a News Day, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school or CLC website, to which the BBC aims to link.

During News Day 2008 students and their work featured on the News Channel, Breakfast News, the One O'clock and Six O'clock News, Newsround, Radio Five Live, Radio 4, 40 local radio stations, 12 regional TV stations, BBC Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and many local and national BBC websites. The School Report website also became a TV channel and a radio station streaming pupils' news reports and coverage of school-based activities throughout the school day. It was also available on the BBC's red button service. The BBC aim to create a similar event on 26 March 2009.

BBC News presenter and former teacher, Huw Edwards, is working on School Report. He said: "Over the years I've run many journalism workshops in schools. So I've seen how much fun it can be and how much can be learnt when there are real deadlines, real audiences and real standards to meet.” He added, "I'm involved because I want to give young people the chance to make the news themselves, and I want to share the principles of good journalism.”

For further information contact John McKiernan on 0161 653 9123.