Journal on school timetable

Nov 10 2007 by Urmee Khan, The Journal

THE Journal has been delivering 30 free papers every day to St Peter’s Primary School, Wallsend, for the past two weeks as part of a literacy initiative with the school.

Deputy Head teacher Paul Rickard said: “The children have to write an article as part of a project and so contacted The Journal to see if they could provide papers to improve the students’ reading and writing.

“The knock on effects have been amazing. The children have shown a real interest in current affairs, analysing the story and even going online to The Journal’s website to follow stories.

“The school is in an area with one of the highest deprivation rates in the city and the standards in writing are quite low, and this has been a really creative way of making writing come alive.”

The Year 6 children, aged 10 to 11, start each morning by reading The Journal. Then in the afternoon, in a ‘guided reading session’, the students identify their favourite story and read it with their parents after school for homework.

Mr Rickard added: “It really has been an excellent idea and the children, who wouldn’t normally read a paper, have been really enthused by the exercise. The paper really does have something for everyone – the boys have enjoyed reading the sports pages and it has really stretched their literacy skills and numeracy skills.

“I’m sure that there are plenty of budding young journalists off the back of this.”