British School of Beijing, Shunyi joins the BBC School Report

The BBC has invited the British School of Beijing, Shunyi to be the pilot international school to take part in the School Report – an innovative project which gives 11-16 year-old students the chance to make their own headlines and report on the stories that matter to them to a real audience.

The British School of Beijing, Shunyi has the honour of being the first and school outside the UK to take part in the school report. Over the autumn and spring terms, students will learn about journalism by becoming BBC School Reporters. Working as a team, they will recreate a newsroom within the school and learn about what journalism entails, from identifying news stories, to writing and publishing them as video, audio or text-based reports.

Students will be taught what constitutes news and how to research stories, including how to ask the right questions and conduct an interview professionally. As in a real newsroom, they must work to deadlines, decide running order and time allocations for each story, and will lead the full production process, including writing, presenting, filming, editing and broadcasting their reports.

The project culminates on 27th March 2014 when students will take part in the School Report News Day - the live broadcast of the BBC School Report online, and on dedicated radio and TV channels in the UK. The pupils' hard work will also be showcased throughout the year on a dedicated news page on the British School of Beijing, Shunyi's website.

The BBC School Report has been running for seven years and thousands of schools in the UK already contribute to the project. School Report aims to interest young people in the news by giving them the chance to share their own stories with a real audience. It also supports student learning by developing teamwork, time management, communication, and analysis skills, as well as the ability to conduct independent enquiries.