Willowfield World Record Breakers!
 
Back in March, Willowfield’s BBC School Report team were just some of hundreds of BBC students across the UK who attempted to become record-breakers - by creating the world's largest interactive weather report.
 
Schools across the country each took a Celsius reading at 0915 and e-mailed it in to the BBC Weather Centre, where they were compiled for a huge interactive weather report. Here at Willowfield, our weather-wonder Zain braved the cold to register a chilly temperature of 5 degrees Celsius. His temperature reading was verified by a member of London Underground staff.
 
To create a new record more than 250 schools needed to send in their temperatures…. And we have finally had confirmation that Guinness World Records have given us official verification! 
 
We set a New World Record for the Largest Interactive Weather Report with 261 schools submitting temperature – big congratulations to the BBC School Report team!

Willowfield School Reports

It's certainly been all go for the Willowfield BBC School Report Team!  We are currently researching, scripting and filming our news packages for our Live Broadcast deadline.  Some of the topics include Beat Bullying, the 2012 Olympics Get Set values and what our school got up to to celebrate World Book Day.  We've posted out lots of Press Releases and letters to our local newspapers and radio stations to hopefully get some coverage and so far the response has been really positive so our fingers are crossed!

 
Proud project leader Miss Evans commented, "Congratulations from me to the whole Willowfield BBC team - the students have absolutely surpassed themselves in terms of their dedication and commitment.  I am extremely proud of them - particularly as it has been a project run outside of their normal timetable.  They have developed skills that I hope they will find invaluable, such as time management, teamwork and the technical skills required to create a live news broadcast." 
 
Join us here to celebrate our successes on Thursday 11th March from 4pm when you can see all our hard work in our very own BBC School News Report!

BBC Report Website

What is BBC News School Report?

BBC News School Report gives 11-14 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience.

Using lesson plans and materials from this website, and with support from BBC staff, teachers help students develop their journalistic skills to become School Reporters.

In March, schools take part in an annual News Day, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school website, to which the BBC aims to link.

BBC News presenter and former teacher, Huw Edwards, is working on School Report.

He said: "Over the years I've run many journalism workshops in schools. So I've seen how much fun it can be and how much can be learnt when there are real deadlines, real audiences and real standards to meet.

"I'm involved because I want to give young people the chance to make the news themselves, and I want to share the principles of good journalism.

"So have a go, let me know what you think, and good luck!"

Public service

The BBC runs School Report so that young people from across the UK have the chance to make their own news to real deadlines and broadcast it to real audiences.

This is because the BBC's first public purpose under its Charter is to "sustain citizenship and civil society", in part by providing an impartial news service for all.

School Report helps fulfil this in three ways:

  • By engaging young people with news
  • By bringing their voices and stories to a wider audience
  • By sharing some of the public service values behind content creation, such as fairness, accuracy, and impartiality since so many young people are content creators and distributors.

Further information

To find our more about the project, please visit the frequently asked questions page and watch one of these two explanatory videos; one which lasts eight minutes and the other which last two minutes.
>>