HERTSBEAT Monday

27 April 2015 Issue 10:24

Measles outbreaks and MMR catch-up campaigns Attached to this edition of Hertsbeat is a letter from Herts County Council regarding the increasing number of measles cases recently reported across England and Wales and

advice on what to do if you have any concerns.

SCHOOL REPORT DAY REVIEW BBC News School Report gives 11-16 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience. It is a collaborative project run by BBC News and BBC Learning and we were privileged to be invited to take part this year. As reported in Hertsbeat 02/03/15, our practice day went extremely well and the real annual BBC School Report News day took place on 19th March, at the end of last term. Our team of students, ably led by our teachers, made a massive contribution to the event and received some great feedback from the BBC team. This Hertsbeat gives an overview of the amazing time our students experienced.

‘Practice Day’ by Charlotte O’Brien Year 10

“Everyone who wanted to take part in BBC News School Report met up in the music room to choose their roles. The majority of people wanted to be presenters, so we had to compromise. We also had to choose what we wanted to make our Report about: we chose tuition fees and we decided to ask the question, “Should education have a price?” During that session, we had the chance to watch a few reports that other students had made, to give us a model example. On Tuesday 19th February, we had our first look into the life of a journalist. After many runs through and memorising the scripts it was time to get filming. During Practice Day two members of staff from the BBC came to visit and support us while we were practising our report. By the end of the day, all hands were on deck and the creative juices were flowing! It was an amazing experience that we managed really smoothly, due to the fact that we worked as a team.”

‘Visit to New Broadcasting House’ by Ms Gregory (Faculty of English) “On March 9th, our BBC School Reporters got the chance to go to New Broadcasting House, the home of BBC News in central London, to quiz the head of the BBC's Visual Journalism Unit, Amanda Farnsworth about her career and the importance of social media and graphics in modern news coverage. During this exciting visit, our students were praised for the high quality of their questions and were given a ‘top-secret’ viewing of the graphics that are to be used in the 2015 election – something which less than 5% of people working in NBH have been allowed to see and about which they have all been sworn to secrecy! This was a really valuable opportunity for our students to develop their understanding of the real world of journalism and was featured on the BBC News School Report website and in the Borehamwood & Elstree Times.”

Peter Gillett Headteacher

‘March 19th

: The BBC News School Report Day’ by Siana Brooker and Hua Ling Dunlop

“We started the day knowing that we were going to be covering the role that social media has in politics now. We already had material from a BBC focus group that students attended on Tuesday and the interview with Oliver Dowden (the Conservative candidate for our constituency). On the agenda for today was interviewing Richard Butler (the Labour candidate), filming the links and editing it all together. We all settled down around a table and tucked into the specially prepared breakfast and began planning our agenda for the day. During this meeting, we discussed our ideas about how we expected the day to go and all of the deadlines that we had to meet. We also discussed what each group of students was assigned to do. After that, we were all separated to do our different jobs. The Year 10s went to research and edit, the Year 9s went to help the Year 10s (because they were the deputy heads and are to be in charge next year) and the Year 8s, this year's apprentices, were given their own jobs to do. We all wore our BBC press passes which made us feel more connected to the BBC, and more professional. As we all knew that we were very close to the deadline the atmosphere suddenly became very serious. When all of the tables were set up and everything was ready, the older students got to work on making the script for the whole report. At precisely 1.30pm, we started to record properly and were all highly focused. When 2.00pm finally came, we started to record live and everything got a bit hectic. We began to film the main news story and edit all of the sections into one and the whole thing started to come together!”

Interviews with Prospective MPs : Oliver Dowden and Richard Butler

As part of the build up to BBC News School Report Day, our students were lucky enough to interview prospective local Conservative candidate, and then Deputy Chief of Staff to David Cameron, Oliver Dowden. Well prepared, our interviewers quizzed him on his background and his views on social media and tuition fees, as well as asking him about how he will be preparing for the election and how he will spend election night. To ensure balance, Richard Butler, our local Labour candidate and former Hertswood student, was interviewed on the News Day. Both were really successful interviews, engaging all the students in politics and generating lots of discussion as to who they would vote for if old enough!!

School Report Party Political Broadcast Q&A

After our visit to New Broadcasting House and a conversation with Helen Shreeve, the Editor of BBC

News School Report, we were thrilled to be invited to host a focus group, run by Susan Gill, a senior

political producer and made up from a selection of students from Year 8 right up to Sixth Form. All of

the major political parties were asked to make short political broadcasts, aimed specifically at young

people. The Conservatives, the Green Party, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the

Scottish National Party all took part and made short films aimed at 11 to 16 year-olds. YouGov pollster

Joe Twyman, then quizzed our students about their responses to each of the videos. This was an

incredible opportunity for students to expand their knowledge of politics and to practise their speaking

and listening skills in a formal setting, as the discussion was filmed and parts of it shown on the BBC

News School Report website. Our students were critical of the apparent inability of politicians to keep

their promises and of their seeming disinterest in young people, whilst demonstrating their real

understanding of the economic and environmental issues that the country faces.

Hertswood Academy BBC School Report Practice Day

School Report Party Political Broadcast Q&A

Hertswood Academy BBC School Report March 2015

Videos available at: http://www.hertswoodacademy.org/BBC-School-Report and at http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/31944491