Our school newspaper

by Michael Williams

Some years ago, our head teacher, Mrs Waters, decided to start a school newspaper, and get as many students as possible to take on the job of producing it — and parents, too. She felt the newspaper would help them learn more about school life, through articles on things like sports achievements and arts projects, which not all students know about if they're not raking part. Students took the whole thing very seriously—and we now have a prize-winning newspaper!

Some of my friends joined the newspaper ream immediately and enjoyed is I'd always loved creative writing and drawing cartoons, which I thought would be perfect in the newspaper, so I signed up. My dad, who's a journalist, was pleased — he thought that even though I wasn't keen on a job like his, the newspaper would be a great opportunity for me. And he was right — I loved it! Dad often came along to give advice, which was popular with the students. It was difficult sometimes, if he was busy, but he learned a lot about the school that way.

My first job was writing a report about a sports event — a writing style I'd never attempted before. But Dad reminded we it was similar in some ways to writing a story — getting information in the right order. Once I'd understood that, there was no stopping me — and after my first efforts, I developed quite a professional style, which was brilliant. Sometimes the team couldn't use what I'd written, or my cartoons, for whatever reason, but I didn't mind. And sometimes it was hard to finish stuff on time, but I usually got there.

I'm now one of the editors — we decide what goes into the newspaper, so our names no longer appear in print. And it's stressful sometimes as we don't have much rime, but we sty to manage that properly. We also correct mistakes in people's articles, which we all had to get used to, but we were soon doing it without thinking — and in our own schoolwork, too. I still put off calling people outside school for comments on stuff, but I guess it's all good experience — at least, that's what Dad says!