Published on April 8, 2020
Ella, Jack and Aidan (all in Year 6) have turned up to our interview with an iPad, a microphone and a ton of enthusiasm. They’re here to discuss their involvement in the Grammar Gazette – a student-led digital news project spreading laughter, joy and connectedness through the Junior School.
The Grammar Gazette is a fortnightly news and reviews program; produced, filmed and edited by a team of avid Year 6 students.
According to Aidan, the Grammar Gazette is a fun activity and a great way to build a sense of community and belonging among students.
“The idea of the Grammar Gazette is to produce and film fun video episodes that share upcoming events for the next two weeks with all students. We film interviews with teachers and other students, create little skits, and we talk about interesting topics, like our PYP Units of Enquiry.”
“We hope that by watching the Grammar Gazette, students feel a part of the School and don’t feel like they have missed out on something.”
Using technology to share school news creatively is an attractive lure for any student; however, Ella was interested in the Grammar Gazette project through the opportunities for peer collaboration.
“I wanted to be able to meet and work with other students that I might not usually get a chance to. It also looked really fun!” says Ella.
Jack also enjoys the thrill of working with others to bring the next episode to the fore but concedes that it can be a lot of work, and not without challenge.
“Finding new people to interview and coming up with interesting topics and things to talk about can be hard. But it’s a team effort, so it makes it okay,” says Jack.
One may be curious as to how these intrepid youngsters develop a script, create a production schedule, then film and edit the episodes. The technologies they use are all accessible and are intuitive in their use by these digital natives.
“We come up with a plan and the idea for the episode ourselves, but sometimes we might ask other students who have done it before for help. We don’t really write a script – once the camera starts, we just know what to say!” says Aidan.