The Student View empowering Addey and Stanhope young journalists

“Hello Kim Kardashian, how are you today,’’ said a school pupil demonstrating how to start an interview after a morning session on interviewing with The Student View.

The Student View is an online publication produced by secondary school students aged 11-16. The publication has engaged students all across London, empowering young people to share their world through words.

Solomon Elliott, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Student View, said: “We go into schools and train students and teachers in the basics of ethical online journalism.”

Addey and Stanhope School in Lewisham has recently joined the programme and pupils started their training on Jan 22. A class of Year 10 students began with the art of interviewing, as explained by Professor Angela Phillips, who lectures in journalism in the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London and is a Student View Trustee.

Professor Phillips led the session where students learned how the job of interviewing is to collect evidence and get information. “It’s really great to be confronted by a group of young people who all want to ask questions,“ said Professor Phillips.

The Student View started 18 months ago, and has been running full-time since September 2016. Goldsmiths Journalism School is a Student View sponsor.

Professor Phillips added:“I was very impressed that The Student View starts from inside schools, so it was a bottom-up idea. I’m a great believer that things grow better from the bottom and that’s why I wanted to involve the Goldsmiths School of Journalism”.

The Student View partnership with Goldsmiths College began less than a year ago,. A one-day journalism workshop was held at Goldsmiths for young people to learn how to write news stories to improve reading and writing skills as a literacy project.

The programme has expanded its reach and is now in the process of becoming a charity. The programme has doubled in size since it started.

Students are able to write on topics that interest them from a variety of categories such as entertainment & arts, sports, health, environment, and opinion, with clear benefits in improving literacy skills. Over 90% of students involved in the programme have improved confidence, resilience and aspiration.

Elliot added: ”Our aim is to scale this to as many schools as possible. Currently we’re working with just over 250 students in London and we plan to expand that over the course of the next few years.”

Over the next few weeks The Student View will go back to Addey and Stanhope School and follow-up with the students to continue their journalistic training to online publication.

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