It gives us great pleasure to announce the airing of the very first broadcast from our new Sixth Form news team, WSS News (Westholme School Student News).
Since the start of term, students from Year 12 and 13 have been working hard to put together a pilot broadcast for a new venture for Westholme. Since the announcement of the project, a large number of students signed up to try their hand at broadcast journalism and develop new skills in technology and media. Excited by the prospect of starting a school-wide initiative from scratch, the team went to work on creating a brand that fit the Westholme ideology, whilst also getting started on the content for the first show.
Students volunteered to work in different parts of the production team, from script writing, interviewing, camera and autocue work, to presenting, editing and developing content for each show. Such was the interest in the venture that we were able to split the students into two teams, working on the first two broadcasts, something that has really worked to their favour in a venture that is driven by meeting deadlines. Yesterday marked the date for the airing of the first show, which will be viewed by every student in the Westholme community.
As the students mentioned in the broadcast, they will be looking to recruit correspondents from each year group, to provide interviews and video footage from within their individual bubbles around school, thereby truly making this an initiative that is run by the students, for the students. The initial shows centre around forthcoming events, including European Day of Languages, which included a clip in the first broadcast of Mrs Blizzard giving a lip sync performance in Spanish, and National Poetry Day, that Mrs Corrigan is excitedly discussing with the news team.
The team look forward to providing shows that help to bring our school community together, despite distancing in separate bubbles, and provide that humour, positivity, enthusiasm and general brilliance that is at the heart of Westholme School.
Yusuf, Head Boy at Westholme, had a few words to say on the initiative:
The purpose of the news team is to provide a new platform for Sixth Formers to have contact with other pupils from further down the school. It will also provide valuable extra-curricular experience for all the students involved in the team that they can use further down the line after school, and it is all done in our spare time outside of our lessons.
We will mainly be focussing on topics that celebrate Westholme. As such, we are looking forward to discussing school matters in a fun, engaging and informative way. We will look to meet every Wednesday to discuss news stories and plan our approach to the next publication.
As the year progresses, the aim is to broadcast breaking news that occurs across the school as it happens. We’d also like to introduce special hosts from other year groups – which will be great experience for those younger pupils who are at the beginning of their Westholme Journey!
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