City gives Islington schoolchildren the opportunity to report on serious news

Forty pupils from five Islington schools have produced broadcast news programmes at the Department of Journalism’s TV studio at City, University of London.

The News Clubs were formed at Islington primary schools as part of City’s outreach programme aimed at widening participation to higher education and has reached around 100 Islington children.

The project is being spearheaded by Emeritus Professor Lis Howell, an award-winning journalist and broadcasting executive who worked for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News. Formerly she was Head of Broadcasting in City’s Department of Journalism.

The News Club began in 2019 with the Saint Andrew’s Church of England Primary School in Barnsbury for which Lis is a school governor. In 2023, she worked with Mary Thorne, Primary Advisor for the London Diocesan Board for Schools in Islington, to scale the programme out to four further primary schools from the Church of England deanery.

The schoolchildren sourced stories from their teachers, parents, and each other and interviewed important local figures such as Islington Councillor Paul Convery.

After writing a script, the children came into the Department’s TV studio at City to record their news segment. The news videos are currently in post-production and will be shown at a special premiere to the deanery schools later in April.

The schools participating in the News Club programme are: Saint Andrew’s Barnsbury Primary School, St John’s Upper Holloway School, Saint Jude & Saint Paul’s Primary School, Saint Mary Magdalene Academy and Saint John’s Highbury Vale Primary School.

Children have reported on teacher strikes in Islington, school closures, a headteacher moving away, and how a netball team was so good the boys wanted to play too.

Serious news: the News Club report on hard stories

Describing the outcome of the News Club programme, Lis said:

The children in the News Clubs are doing serious news. We’re teaching them to be neutral and to find good stories.

We’ve loved introducing them to the wider world of politics and business and sport – they are hungry for knowledge!

They can see the purpose of their writing and they make a product with their writing. It’s down to them and their ‘word pictures’ to bring their stories to life.

Felicity Djehere is Headteacher at Saint Andrew’s Primary School. The school serves the local community and she described it as a typical inner-London school, with a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, languages and cultures from all around the world.

She said choosing which children could participate in the News Club was “tough”. She believes the News Club helps children consider the impact of their writing and their work. She said:

We chose students that were gifted in English, but also selected children that were on the cusp of achievement and needed a bit of a boost.

One child this year was very quiet and just got on with her work, but being part of this News Club has really helped boost her confidence.

Lindsey Hodgson is Head of School of St John’s Highbury Vale Primary School. “It was really lovely for them to be involved in a process to see how their writing can be viewed, shared and seen by many people,” she said. “The children were very excited to come to City’s TV studio today.”

Widening access in Islington

Not only has the News Club been an important opportunity for the children to develop their skills, but it has also strengthened the schools’ links to their deanery.

Penny Roberts, Director of Education at the London Diocesan Board for Schools visited the Saint Andrew’s Primary School for the first time to be interviewed by the children.

“The children grilled Penny about the future of small church schools like ours, asking about budgets and student numbers,” headteacher Felicity said. “They are adept at getting to the nitty gritty of what an interview must entail.”

Ben Copsey is the Widening Participation Manager at City. His team works on outreach projects with young people that are typically underrepresented in higher education through tutoring, taster days or longer-term projects like the News Club project. He said:

City, University of London is a global university, but it is also a local university. We have a duty of care towards our Islington community.

In the Widening Participation and Outreach Team, we often say, ‘If you don’t see it, you struggle to be it.’

Bringing the school children into the TV studio at City with Lis’s expertise and knowledge offers them the opportunity to imagine where their life journey might take them.

City works with four schools to deliver weekly primary tutoring and invites neighbouring schools to visit once or twice a year as part of its outreach work.

On average, the University welcomes 400 primary school pupils yearly, which includes children in Year 5 and Year 6 from Saint Andrew’s Primary School.

“The children have such a great day learning about the university,” headteacher Felicity said. “They leave thinking ‘I could go to university’ and that it’s not just a pipe dream.”