On Thursday 5th March, twenty-nine children from Year 5 and 6 travelled to the Guardian Education Centre in London to take part in an educational workshop on writing a news story for the front page of a newspaper.
The children had this opportunity courtesy of the BookTrust who ran a competition that was brought to our attention by our school librarian, Emma Haynes.
Staff and parents entered the competition and Rob Moon’s entry was selected as the winning entry.
On arrival, the children were met by Jan Trott and Margaret Holborn from the Guardian and Emily Drabble from the BookTrust who spoke to the children about the importance of books and the power of reading.
“Don’t forget the power of books to influence your later life.”
Emily Drabble
After a quick break for lunch, the children were given a selection of stories, all related to World Book Day, and could choose one of the stories to publish to their front page.
The children were then introduced to Julia Eccleshare (Guardian’s Children’s Books Editor) who spoke to the children about her job which primarily consists of reading children’s books which she said she thought was the best job in the world... until she met someone who tasted cakes for a living!
“You can find yourself having experiences you could never come across in other ways... I can’t go back or forward in time but I can in a story. That’s what makes reading special for all of us.”
Julia Eccleshare
The children were then tasked with writing their second news story about meeting Julia.
After they had written their stories, they had to edit their stories before writing a headline for their front pages. The final step was to add the photos that would add the finishing touches.
The finished masterpieces can be seen below.
We would particularly like to thank Jan from the Guardian Education Centre for her time today.
Guardian Newspaper Trip
