What issues were you seeing in relation to fake news or online information?
Children think everything on YouTube is true. Despite having internet safety lessons from year one, they still have to be reminded that everything online is not necessarily real.
Are there any stand out moments from your involvement with NewsWise?
When the pupils wrote their news reports. They chose to write about Burton’s first Muslim mayor - 90% of children in class are Muslim. We emailed the mayor and he came to our school. The children loved this and wrote their own reports on it. This was also the mayor’s first visit to a school and he really inspired the children about their future aspirations. Pupils were able to apply the journalistic skills they’d learned during NewsWise to a real life situation.
What was the most impactful part of NewsWise for your pupils?
The children absolutely loved the session with the journalist, Martin Coulter. It was brilliant - they spoke about it afterwards and it really inspired them. A couple of children who didn’t want to be a journalist before have said they do now. Their faces when Martin was talking about Google - wow! His type of journalism is what they’re interested in (Martin is a tech correspondent for Reuters). The children really related to him and were so excited.
