This year, four teams have been formed to work with Mrs. Khalladi; the BBC School Report Link Teacher; and Mr. Alkadamy on their reports.

All four teams have completed the reports and met the deadline, but more importantly, they were given an insight of the world of Journalism and were introduced to new skills such as blogging and interviewing.  The teams were lively and resilient and were determined to carry on their reports despite the technical difficulties they faced.

Team "Coherent" chose the topic of social media and explored its’ positive and negatives effects on society. Their main focus was to guide and educate young people who make use of social media. Also, to raise awareness and make them understand why and how they should stay safe online. They interviewed a local Kilburn police officer, who explained the consequences of not staying safe online and gave advice on how to stay safe online and what to do if one is cyber bullied.

Team Coherent described their experience saying, “We found this experience fun and also challenging as we had many difficulties that we learned from” Team "Saviours" chose to raise awareness about the refugee crisis.  They shared facts and statistics on the matter and the latest news, they also interviewed a British Muslim celebrity to hear his point of view on the matter and give them an insight on what people think. The team also interviewed the public to openly hear their views.Team Saviours wrote on their blog about their experience saying, “We’ve had an amazing time and this has been a wonderful journey.”

Team "Esperanza" were convinced that mental health is “a very big matter”.  They explained, “we think that it is appealing because we as young people are conveying this message and us being as young as 12 should inspire other people older than us and the youth to be aware.”  They conducted an interview with the head of Samaritans in Brent, hoping to “bring awareness in teenagers’ lives so that they can help and prevent other people from taking their lives.”  They also interviewed a teacher on this topic. Team Esperanza also said about some aspects of their learning from this experience, “We also made sure to check over our questions and pin pointing the exact questions that we think are important”.

Team "Serenity" also decided to cover the topic of mental health, but looking at it from a different perspective, as they put it, “We focused on anxiety and depression as it is a major mental health issue that not many people are informed about. In this report we spoke about the troubles and solutions to anxiety and depression.”

It was pleasure working with year 8's and seeing them grow in confidence. The school thanks every class member for their excellent teamwork and resilience and we are hoping to see more multimedia production from them in the future.

We also extend our thanks to Eleanor Morris, From the BBC report mentors team for her motivating sessions and to all the interviewees for their co-operation and for inspiring our pupils.

Below are the completed productions and links to their Blog pages:

Team Coherent

Team Coherent’s blog

Team Saviours

Team Saviours’blog

Team Esperanza

Team Esperanza’s blog

Team Serenity

Team Serenity’s blog