Here is a timetable, devised by Oldham City Learning Centre, that may be a useful template to help you plan your schedule on BBC School Report News Day.
It describes activities for students creating a TV and a radio bulletin, but may be adapted for students creating text-based reports.
Huw's tips: Finding news
Students gather together for an introduction to the day and another chance to view Huw Edwards' video on finding the news.
Recap the safety rules for the day, the BBC news values who the audience is, what counts as news, the three Cs and the five Ws.
Students move to ICT room. They have half an hour to find news, from sources such as the internet and newspapers, but also from their school or local community.
Students write their research on a "News Story Idea" sheets, which contain the headings:
What happened? Who was involved? Where did it happen? When did it occur? Why did it happen? Where did you find this news? (sources) 0930
Editorial meeting, where a representative from each group, referring to the "News Story Idea" sheets, pitches for the inclusion of their stories.
The meeting decides whether each story is:
"In" - interesting, important etc. - or "out"- not current, legally tricky, etc. Best suited to radio or to TV, depending on the availability of visual material etc.
During this meeting, the remaining students recap gathering news using activities from
Six students are chosen for the TV production team, and sent for training with the technical crew. The jobs are: camera operators, grips and vision mixers.
Small teams of students, are given:
A format, either TV or radio A section of the final broadcast e.g. national news, community news One or two "in" stories
Working on stories, which may not have been their original ideas, students:
Research the stories on the "News Story Idea" sheets in more detail.
Gather facts (5 Ws), quotations, interviews, background information e.g. statistics Gather digital material e.g. vox pops, images Tell each other their stories verbally Write a script which includes a hand-over over to the next team Practise presenting their script
Groups working in radio may begin to record and edit their bulletin as soon as they like.
Students working on the TV bulletin meet up with the technical teams in the studio, while those working in radio start to focus on editing or assembling their bulletin.
The sections of the TV broadcast are recorded as live, with any false starts edited out afterwards.
During the edit, pre-recorded segments are inserted to cover the changeover of students between sections.
Students complete their reports and pass them to the webmasters who publish the completed broadcasts to the website by 1600.
Students review their work.