Broadcast students make the news

Broadcast and television students from The Manchester College have teamed up with schools from the region to help out with the BBC News School Report – a project designed to engage teenagers with news and bring their stories and voices to a wider audience.

Foundation degree students from the college will be working with Greater Manchester high school pupils, aged 11-14, sharing their own expertise to help them run a news studio at Manchester Central during the Big Bang Science Fair on Thursday, 11th March.

Pupils from three schools – Rainford High Technology College, St Helens; Sir John Thursby Community College, Burnley; and Woodhey High School, Bury – will be responsible for generating their own content for a science based bulletin to tie in with National Science and Engineering Week.

Once complete, their news report will be streamed live onto the BBC’s big screen in Exchange Square in Manchester city centre at 2pm. The broadcast will be aired simultaneously with multimedia news reports created by the other 25,000 teenagers taking part in the project across the country. During the morning, live inserts from the science fair will also be streamed into the School Report coverage for the day on the BBC red button and BBC online on the News School Report website.

Colin Ralph, course leader for the foundation degree in broadcast television at The Manchester College, said: ‘This is a great opportunity for our talented broadcast and television students to showcase their skills to a national audience and to inspire the next generation of high school pupils to consider broadcasting as a credible career option.’

One of the foundation degree students on the programme, Julie Friday from Manchester, added: ‘Working with BBC News School Report on this event promises lots of experience, putting into practice the skills we have learned so far. I’m really looking forward to it.’