Fair Oak Junior School in Southampton have made their school newspaper a vehicle for citizenship teaching, by involving their pupils in its creation. Headteacher Jinty Williamson believes the newspaper, published annually since 1996, makes the issues it contains real for the children, and helps them to take responsibility for their own learning and have a role in shaping their community. Every class in the school writes an article. This year 3CM decided theirs would be about the school fundraising day for the Tsunami Disaster appeal, whilst class 5TH are writing an article about a charity project that supports schools in the slums of Nairobi. This programme follows the latest edition being put together by the children from first editorial to final copy. We see how the whole school has a role to play in the newspaper's production and how the project benefits the children in their citizenship learning.

Video Series: KS1/2 Citizenship
Release Date 2006