Budding Journalists

Year 9 and 10 Students on the St Mary’s Outstanding Potential Accelerated Learners (OPAL) programme, learned first-hand about the opportunities available to them as budding writers in the world of journalism. Katie Palmer from Newsquest who works on Colchester’s Daily Gazette, came in to run a workshop with our strongest writers selected by the English Department.

Katie ran through the different types of articles you would find in a newspaper, from News In Brief articles – the ‘NIBs’ to Features and Headline stories and how these are written and structured. She also demonstrated shorthand and gave insight in to how vital this skill is for journalism but how it can also be used in everyday life.

As part of the workshop, the girls were set the task of putting text in the correct order to make up a variety of articles that Katie had written, making sure they had the headline, intro, body copy and conclusion were all in the correct order. Katie was impressed with their efforts: “All the girls were really engaged and seemed particularly interested in the story structure element of the session. They asked some very insightful questions, it was a real pleasure to work with them.”

Following her visit, the English department hope to arrange a follow up session with Katie at Newsquest, so that the group can visit the hustle and bustle of the newsroom.