Citizenship

Putting our Public Purposes into action:
Sustaining citizenship and civil society

What does this mean?

Journalism and coverage of current affairs is crucial to the BBC. We aim to engage everyone in the UK with news and current affairs and we also want to encourage people to participate in debate. This often means we need to go beyond just reporting on the news. Our projects aim to give people a chance to get involved and find things out for themselves.

How do we do it?

BBC News School Report gives 11-16 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience.

Following lesson plans and materials from the BBC News School Report website, and with support from BBC staff and partners, teachers help students develop journalistic skills to become School Reporters.

The students put these skills to use by taking part in the BBC’s annual News Day. Tackling the news that matters to them, they create video, audio and text-based news reports to publish on their school website. As well as linking to these school websites, the BBC broadcasts many of the reports in its TV, radio and online news output.

2012's News Day was the biggest yet - with over 1000 schools taking part!

As might be expected, one of this year's most popular themes was the London 2012 Olympic Games. Some students talked to competing Olympians and Paralympians while some schools from London even visited the Olympic Park for a press conference with Lord Coe. Students from Bury Grammar School Boys interviewed Mark and Richard from the band Elbow, who are writing the official BBC theme for London 2012, and discovered which northern pastime the musicians would make into an Olympic sport.