Mr Bright is delighted to bring you his own report on how the New Bridge BBC News Report Day went this year..

This week was the annual BBC News School Report which we have taken part in every year for the last 10 years. This year our three IT pathway Digit4ll groups came together at our Medtia site to report on the news of the day. It was such a great day! The goal of the day is to help students gain a better insight into how the news is presented to us. It’s a full-on day but the students loved it..

The day started at 9am by gathering news stories from reputable sources online or from newspapers before the students then wrote down the 5 Ws (What, Where, Who, When and Why) of each story ready to feed back to the team. We then had an editorial meeting where the top six stories were chosen by the democratic process of throwing your hands in the air!!!

It worked. The stories turned out to be those that the students wanted to report on. There were 30 students in total so it was a little squashed at times but once the teams were in place they were off around the town of Oldham to interview other people for their thoughts on the stories. Be thankful you weren’t in town between the hour of 11:30am and 12:30pm as you would’ve been accosted by the New Bridge reporting team! We had a lot of reports and interviews, some we definitely couldn’t air, but in the end we managed to get a balanced mix of views..

The aim of the day was to get a better understanding of the way the news is reported but some of the team forgot the interviewee is the one who should be being recorded not the interviewer; you’ll see what I mean when you watch the report! There were also some reports that gave such passionate opinions on the current state of affairs that we also had to pull from the final report but the students learnt that the news must remain impartial and only the facts must be presented.

So 2pm was upon us and the students took turns in their teams to present the news live-to-air. There were a few bloopers, most of which will never see the light of day, but they read from the autocue brilliantly and performed in front of a green screen when it mattered. Whether it was news researcher, news writer, news presenter, camera operator, sound recorder or interviewer, there was a role for everyone..

The truth is our students are very aware of the current news stories and fully engaged in what is going on in the world. I’m always surprised and amused in equal measures on the BBC News Report Days, and this year it was no different. I hope you have enjoyed viewing the photos from the day and I am sure you will find the report itself very informative..

I’d like to thank all the staff who helped on the day and congratulate the students on another successful news report.

You can read more about our involvement with the BBC News Report and watch broadcasts from previous years here.