Brentside High School in Ealing has been working with the BBC’s School Report for the last 9 years. Associate Head of English Vesna Klein talks about the excitement and pride of her pupils’ work being featured on the BBC and how they ended up in Downing Street…
Our school has 1,350 students of mixed ability and is also ethnically very mixed with students who are West Indian, Eastern European and Asian. It’s a lovely environment.
Our involvement with School Report has been progressing from strength to strength. We started working with School Report in 2006 and every year we involve all year 8 students. We teach School Report as a unit of work which lasts between 4-6 weeks. Everyone does the practice day and every child has a role.
On the News Day everyone gets to do something that plays to their strengths. We turn a classroom in to a newsroom with two cameras and a smart board.
Brentside students outside Number 10
We have reporters, presenters, bloggers, even someone to do the weather. It’s all shared around the school network and on the BBC website. It creates a lot of excitement and pride for everyone in the school.
There is a real sense of achievement. The children take it very seriously - this is the BBC after all!
I’ve been a teacher at Brentside High School for 12 years; I started as a subject teacher and progressed to the role of Associate Head of English. I’m very keen on grammar and spelling; these can often be forgotten in social media. BBC School Report teaches pupils about the importance of accuracy and clarity in communication, both written and oral. Therefore, it prepares students for the future of work.
We’ve been really lucky to be able to do some fantastic things with the BBC.
Over the years our students attended a press conference at number 10 with David Cameron. I think this was my favourite event, it was a real honour for everyone involved. Another really proud moment for our students was reporting on the Queen’s official opening of New Broadcasting House in London.
Brentside youngsters report in the BBC Newsroom at New Broadcasting House
We also hosted an edition of World Have Your Say to a radio audience of 30 million. We broadcasted the programme in our school, and covered the last BBC broadcast at the White City studios.
These events are not just for an elite group of students – everyone has the opportunity to take part. It creates a real buzz with the children, the parents and the community.
It’s great that they see English as something exciting. Every School Report News Day is amazing. This is where English as a subject really comes to life.
I definitely want to continue with School Report in to its 10th year next year. I’d like to see the students take charge and run it for themselves. Now that would be exciting.
School Report started nine years ago and since then more than 2000 schools have worked in partnership with us to help 11-16 year olds make their own news for a real audience.
30,000 pupils took part in our News Day this year from 1030 schools across every part of the British Isles – from Orkney to the Channel Islands. More than twice that number participated during the academic year.
This year’s News Day spanned 24 hrs for the first time with 4 overseas schools linking up with local BBC bureaux in Rio, Nairobi, Washington and Delhi with their reports appearing on BBC World News.
School Report won the European Diversity award for journalism in 2014 and has been named as a finalist in the prestigious Schools Partnership Award - one of the annual accolades from Business in the Community which celebrates inspirational companies that are taking action to address social and environmental issues and transform communities.
The winner will be announced in July.
BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the BBC closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community and staff volunteering.
