Shropshire schools broadcast home learning initiative
Youngsters from across the county have stepped into the shoes of a journalist to broadcast their home learning experiences.
The project organised by Oldbury Wells School in Bridgnorth will see more than 120 pupils upload short news clips detailing what they have learnt from home throughout the lockdown period.
The Newsround-themed initiative is set to be complete in the coming weeks and includes 13 schools across Shropshire, which will all have the finished video broadcast in classrooms simultaneously.
Lee Tristham, headteacher at Oldbury Wells School, said: "We designed this project to give pupils an enjoyable and educational activity during these challenging times. We were hoping it would be something fun for the family to get involved in during the winter lockdown.
"We also wanted to find a way for pupils to share with each other some of the excellent work they were doing across all of our local schools."
Each school was given a short film by Oldbury Wells, starring drama teacher Kurt Cook as a TV newsreader, which introduced the project and explained what pupils should do to take part.
Sarah Godden, CEO of the TrustEd Schools' Partnership, which has all six of its schools involved, said: "We designed this project to give pupils in our trust schools something extra fun and constructive to do through virtual learning at home.
"We then thought that it could be something that other schools could easily take part in. We were delighted that all of the Bridgnorth area primary schools have taken part. From the film clips that the pupils have sent us we can see the wonderful variety of excellent learning that children are doing across our area, including local history, extreme weather, ancient China, space travel, Churchill and Henry VIII."
Participating schools from TrustEd Schools' Partnership are Oldbury Wells School, Church Stretton School, Alveley Primary School, Castlefields Church of England Primary School, Stokesay School and St Leonard's Primary School. Other schools taking part are Beckbury School, Claverley School, Highley School, Morville School, St John's RC School, St Mary's School and Worfield School.
Tom Williams, assistant headteacher from Oldbury Wells School, and Chris Smith, head of Year 7, both led and coordinated the project.
Mr Williams said: "Our plan is to take the best reports from across the schools and compile these into a news programme for everyone. We are planning a film screening where we show the best clips across all of the schools. This screening will be broadcasted into the classrooms of all of the schools. We are really excited to share our film with everyone when it's finished."
Castlefields Primary School headteacher, Rebecca Lee, added: "This has been a great project. It has given pupils a chance to be creative and show what they have been learning about in their virtual lessons. We really look forward to seeing the film screening and the result of all the pupils' hard work. Thank you to Oldbury Wells for organising this inspiring project for us all."
