Happy News Project

Setting up for the project

Roles in a newsroom

The Happy News Project gives pupils the opportunity to have a go at the various roles in a newsroom to work together to produce their news report. These suggested roles give pupils more responsibility:

• Desk editor: acts as team leader and makes the final decisions, including which story to report.

• Reporter: researches key facts for the story and/or conducts interviews.

• Subeditor: proofreads the report, checking for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors - as well as checking the facts! Subeditors also write the headline.

• Picture editor: selects the most interesting and appropriate pictures to use in the report. They can also write the captions.

Finding a story

Pupils could choose a happy news story from within their local communities: an example of someone doing a good deed or a story that made them laugh. Alternatively, pupils could find stories from our list of child-friendly news sites. This is an opportunity for pupils to have a voice, share the stories that matter to them and conduct real interviews. Pupils could produce written, audio or video news reports. You might like to use our front page template for written reports or our script to support audio or visual reports.

Create a real audience

Decide who your audience is and how your pupils can share their happy news stories with them. Could it feature on the school website or newsletter? Could you create a printed version to share with families? Remember, it’s all about spreading happy news to others! Teachers - if you have a class or school twitter page, you can tweet us your pupils’ stories too: @GetNewsWise #HappyNews.