SCHOOL NEWS: Learning about news

Budding journalists keen to work on their own newspaper

Teachers Karen Lewis (left) and Patricia Grant (right) with QT's Darren Hallesy and Year 4 students at Bethany Lutheran

LEARNING about how to put together an article for a newspaper was the topic of the day recently for students at Bethany Lutheran Primary School.

The school invited Darren Hallesy from The Queensland Times (QT) to speak with the students about life as a journalist. Mr Hallesy spoke about how he became a journalist and how he gets his articles ready for print and online. He explained the process of getting an article from a live event to being written, photographed, printed, uploaded online, as well as posting directly to the QT's social media pages.

He explained that readers get instant notifications about road closures, accidents and important events that affect the community.

Mr Hallesy was interactive with the students in asking and answering questions, as well as demonstrating how a newsworthy story is developed. An example of this was a student in Year 4, Harrison Martin, took time over the holidays to create a peacock costume and went to the Queensland Hospital to entertain children. Harrison's brother was in hospital and he wanted to give back to the hospital and make some young patients laugh.

This term Year 4 Students from Bethany Lutheran are training to be Junior Newspaper Journalists. With the help of teachers, Karen Lewis and Patricia Grant, students will learn what it takes to be a journalist, how to cover important events, to produce a concise and accurate article to be published, as well as create a podcast to be shared with parents.

Students will also need to learn how to take that perfect picture to go with their story.

They will be researching Australia, Africa and South America and reporting on news, politics, as well culture, food and important celebrations. Students will be interviewing school community members, family and friends who come from a range of nationalities, to learn more about their culture to enable them to report accurately. They will also be cooking authentic recipes from Australia, Africa and South America and writing food reviews for their newspaper.

Not only will students be reporting on these countries but they will also be investigating what's going on within the school community by asking questions of teachers and students. Students will be working closely with their own news team, photographers and editors to get their stories published. Year 4 students were inspired by the visit to become journalists of not only local news but travelling and reporting on international events.