Warwickshire News Mine

The SWiRLs News, named after the areas of their schools – Sydenham, Whitnash, Radford and Leamington South – contains articles written and designed as part of Warwickshire County Council’s extended services provision.

Upon its publication, pupils from Bishops Tachbrook C of E Primary School and Campion School took to the streets and gave copies of the newspaper to Christmas shoppers in the Royal Priors.

Stories have included a review of Bishop’s Tachbrook’s radio programme, a biography of the area’s new vicar, a 40th birthday celebration of Briar Hill School, a history of Alton Castle and letters on the subject of home learning.

Pupils worked with Rae Reeves, a journalist and designer, on the editing and layout of the newspaper.  It has gone down well with the young people and with a former Campion pupil, Paul Yarwood, who left the school in the mid fifties.  He said:

“It’s good to see the young people out and about getting some feedback from the public on what they are doing.  It makes their learning real and will give them confidence.”

Mr Yarwood chatted with pupils Brandon Downes and Connor Tyler, year 7 pupils at Campion School.  Brandon who wrote the star letter on home learning said:  “I enjoyed writing the letter and seeing it in the newspaper.  Doing things like this makes school more enjoyable.”

Connor also enjoyed seeing his work in print, saying:  “Of all the work we did, I most enjoyed writing the letter and, best of all, seeing it in the paper!”
The cluster co-ordinator who organised this is Steve Bolsover, assistant head teacher at Campion School.  The newspaper is one of a number of projects that the cluster of schools is working on together that also include animation workshops, book publishing, urban design, radio and fund raising activities.

He said:  “Working with the schools in our cluster is enabling more and more local children to have fantastic opportunities for learning and for stimulating activities which will benefit them tremendously – in and out of the classroom.  It enriches the education experience, improves attainment across the board and gets children across the locality working and learning together.”

Andy Brettell is head teacher of Bishops Tachbrook Primary School, whose pupils were also involved in producing the newspaper.  He said:  “We’re really excited by this new opportunity for our children to have a real purpose for their writing and seeing their reaction to it appearing in print is awesome.”

For further details of Extended Services activities in the area, visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/extendedservices

Link to WCC