INQUISITIVE students and budding news hounds chased stories at school as part of a nationwide programme.
Pupils from Heathfield School in Pinner, Rooks Heath College, South Harrow, Salvatorian College in Harrow and Park High School, Stanmore, formed news teams and reported the most interesting stories from their schools.
Five lucky student reporters from Park High visited the BBC Breakfast studios on Monday last week and interviewed presenters Bill Turnbull, Sian Williams and Chris Hollins.
English teacher Rebecca Mitchell said: “It was an absolutely amazing opportunity for them and one of them came back saying that every student should get to do it. They also got to work with a BBC journalist who went through their stories and helped them through each stage of being a journalist.”
One of the pupils who took part, Mustafa Ramji, said: “I enjoyed the freedom BBC School Report gave us as we got to choose our own topics for our articles and take complete control and it’s not often we get that. The experience has inspired me to become a journalist.”
At Salvatorian College, English teacher Clara Story, a former editor, arranged the event for the first time and got eight pupils aged 11 to 13 to take part.
One student, Michael Cerfelj courageously went out with his notebook and set up an interview with the local policewoman PC Sonya Ong. Other pupils reported on the activities of the science club and a recent school trip to Canterbury.
At Heathfield School in Beaulieu Drive, Pinner, a group of students conducted interviews and tackled some of the most pressing issues in the news today.
Khadja Zribi and Danny Fraser, both aged 11, of Copland Community College in Wembley, were part of a group of 16 youngsters lucky enough to go to 10 Downing Street to interview Prime Minister David Cameron.
English teacher Manisha Kerai said: “Khadja and Danny felt it was a real honour to be able to go and represent the young people of Brent. The questions they asked related to raising awareness of gang problems in the local area and how schools would cope with funding cuts..”
Pupils all over the country created audio, video and web news to a 2pm deadline on Thursday which was streamed live to the BBC School Report website.
A total of 12 Copland Community College pupils took part, creating video reports on a host of subjects.
Ms Kerai added: “I think the BBC School Report scheme is fantastic. It’s a really good thing for the kids, and not only does it really help with their literacy skills, but it also gives them a chance to use video.”
More than 1,000 schools across the country took part in the BBC School Report scheme.
