BBC Shene comes to Sheen!

Yesterday,  a selection of year 9 students participated in BBC School Report. In only 5 hours they researched, interviewed, filmed, voice recorded, typed, edited and produced an entire selection of news stories. Their commitment to the day and behaviour both in school and on the Upper Richmond Road was fantastic. They were so impressive in Sam’s (researching antisocial behaviour) that they were given free chips! Every shop they entered (including a lingerie shop, as they were so desperate to interview locals they didn’t look in the window before they went in!),  they received a warm welcome from the owner and very infrequently did they get rebuffed by people in the street for interviews. Our BBC Mentor, the producer of a Radio 5 show, noted that when she calls for interviews, she has a 50% success rate…our children were probably nearer 80 or 90%! The final written pieces are on the school website and there will soon be a couple of videos to accompany these. Hopefully,  we will be taking them to the BBC studios soon and our BBC Mentor has offered some special behind the scenes tour as she was so impressed with them.  

I copy the email we just received from the BBC journalist:

"I just wanted to say thank you for having me at the school last week, I really enjoyed it. What a difference to my usual day at work! It was every bit as busy as being in the newsroom here at BBC Radio 5 live but the people I was working with were far more entertaining than those I usually sit next to!

I thought the school reporters all did really well, and their pieces look great on the website. They got two mentions on the School Report live feed, Billy got his own name-check, see here (at 1423 and 1545):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/school_report/8504453.stm 
Thanks again and well done for getting it all together, I am full of admiration for the job you do.
Here's the page for booking tours of Television Centre, let me know if you do book, I'd love to come and say hello when you arrive."

The current BBC website has two tweets from the journalist:

1423: Spoilt for choice: "Shene School Reporters have interviewed local shopkeepers and parents about anti-social behaviour, fast food, Beckham's scarf, social networking sites and the fact that their school will soon become an academy," texts mentor Jane Andrews from Shene School in London.


1545: Beckam's scarf: "Billy from Shene School in London becomes the first School Reporter to publish his story on the school website. Local football fans have been telling him how they felt to see Beckham wear the green and gold scarf at Old Trafford last night," texts mentor Jane Andrews from Shene School in London

Students involved: Laura,  Snezhana, Shabaaz, Klarisa, Daniel, Zeyad, Jamie, Arbnor, Jason, Lucas, George,  Billy,  Matty,  Olly, Suha, Romilah, Robson.