Speakeasy 4 Schools

Summary

Our latest Enterprise Education programme delivers journalistic and presentation skills as students chase deadlines to create their own news programmes.

Statistics show that fewer young people than ever regularly watch news programmes on television, or read newspapers. SpeakeasyNews encourages students to reflect on why news might be very important to them. A dynamic challenge event, strongly supporting Enterprise within English, students are challenged to understand and deliver in 3 key ares;

• What is news or news-worthy?
• Gathering the news
• Reporting the news

Teamwork, planning and organisational skills are all tested through a series of challenges in the eventual creation of a newspaper, magazine, television or radio show!

How it works

Students work in ‘journalism teams’ towards the creation and production of a real news programme, whether it is TV, a website or a newspaper.

Introduction: What is news?

We give examples of what makes a ‘good’ news story and how it affects peoples’ lives. We also highlight and explain the different roles needed in creating a news programme and ask them to decide on the roles best suited to different people in their group. The emphasis is on playing to your strengths and working as a team to produce top quality work.

• Gathering the news. We give techniques used by the professionals and explain the importance of recognising what is fact and what is one person’s opinion.
• Each team is given a deadline for finishing their work, by which time they must submit their news programme. Finally, students must explain why they chose the media format they did and how they gathered and produced their news stories!

This day is extremely successful, resulting in certificates and a cash prize for the overall winner.