Creating your own media empire
Creating your own media empire - how to develop a school magazine. Have you ever considered running a school magazine? In this article, Liam Benjamin explains how a visual media club, at Sandwich Junior School in Kent, evolved to do just that.
A school magazine is a powerful way to develop pupil voice and promote the achievements of the school to a wider audience. Deciding to start a school magazine was not something that just happened overnight, it was a process that seemed to grow naturally and took shape from nothing more than a lunchtime club. By the end, my students were running everything, including counting the profits!
My Visual Media club at Sandwich Junior School (SJS) started off simply. The students took photographs at school events, sorted out music for assemblies, printed off documents and put together displays around the school. Very little attention was paid to writing at this point; it was more a creative technology group that helped out during lunchtimes. Each week I would help them perfect their photography skills, teaching them to recognise when a photograph was good or not, as well as how to improve it. Granted, my band of merry technology enthusiasts enjoyed the club but I wanted to see what else we could achieve. With the skills they had fine tuned, it only seemed natural to put these to a greater purpose. Why not put these photographs to use and tell the story of what was happening around school?
At first we clumped some pages together and made a booklet of photographs. We used software called Comic Life which can be downloaded as an app for tablets or purchased as a site license. This software enables students to insert photographs and add speech bubbles of people talking or thinking. This approach helped in telling our story of school life. After further exploration, I discovered the program contained many useful tools; that we could choose lettering, arrange images and alter the overall formatting. The students enjoyed the interface of this easy to use program. However, what we produced contained very little narrative. My six 10 year-olds had weaved a story together but it lacked bite. Although I felt some pride, this was very minimal journalism. The students however, acted as if they had produced some kind of Holy Scripture. I was determined that we could do more, to not only raise the profile of the school, but to increase readership too.
Our second attempt, printed a term later, proved more refined and in fact even presented articles written by the students. They produced some well written pieces of report writing, commenting on new play equipment, new clubs that had started running as well as what took place at the summer fare. With the closure of the local Pfizer pharmaceutical plant, many families faced redundancy. The magazine offered a platform for students to comment on what was taking place; to express their concern and sadness for friends who were moving back to America. By now, our efforts were gaining momentum towards looking like an actual magazine. Students were actively giving up their lunchtimes to write articles, to take photographs and interview people. I’d return from my lunch to find a huddle of students by the ICT suite, waiting to get started and working through their break, until they were satisfied. By now I was guiding them more closely, helping them choose articles that would be captivating.
The Gardening club had just planted, might only need one writer. Sometimes it would take three or four sessions to complete articles, with the review process involving checking spelling and grammar. There were often redrafts without any question or hesitation. This proved a great way to hone their proof-reading skills. This real audience gave their writing purpose and meaning. They knew other students and staff were going to read their work. More importantly they knew they were going to sell the magazine to the parents. Over time, the layout and content of the magazine was tweaked as I fell under pressure from the finance manager to reduce the colour photocopying. This provided another learning opportunity as we were limited to a set number of pages and students had to calculate what each page was worth and recognize that we had to make a profit.
We settled on a twelve page magazine. Sold at £1 we would make a 50p profit per issue sold. Once we knew what our limit was it was much easier to be critical about content. Finally our next issue was ready and the magazine proved overwhelmingly popular. Instead of me rattling around the school trying to shift copies, I left it to the students; they had complete control. Our handy site manager even made them a sandwich board to wear when selling the magazine! Over the period of a week, they eagerly bounced from class to class and sold the fifty copies we had made with great ease!
Word of mouth spread and SJS Magazine was born. Following this, the Visual Media group produced a magazine three times a year: a winter, a spring and a summer issue. Timing was important; we noticed that we sold copies quicker when we timed publications to coincide with key school events. We always printed eighty copies and sold every single one. Not only were the students lapping up copies but parents were buying them too. This was the only club in school generating an income.
In order to keep the enthusiasm for the magazine alive, the current Visual Media students chose new members and spent the summer term training them up. The sense of pride was enormous and the level of devotion was commendable. All the staff helped contribute to the magazine in one way or another and after nine issues and over £300 raised, there was a legacy in place. I realise I have managed to condense four years of work and nine issues of magazines into a very short tale. Whole school writing can be so much more if we let it. I started with six students, a colour photocopier and a camera. What transpired was evidence of pupil voice; their words, photographs and ideas helped shape the way writing was viewed around the school. Students were inspired but also parents and governors gained an inside view of the school and its achievements. If you require any more convincing, then it was mentioned in the school’s Ofsted report too: ‘They write interesting articles on a range of issues and use their good information and communication technology skills to produce the eye-catching school magazine each term. Their enterprise and mathematical skills are honed by selling copies and managing the costs and profit.’
Setting up a school magazine – a process model:
Establish a working party – take 6 capable writers • Set your boundaries, e.g. how many pages/issues a year?
Agree upon who is your audience. Will the magazine stay in school or will it be sold to parents?
Consider finances. What will your overheads be? What can you print in colour or black and white? (having at least 1 page in black and white can reduce costs) Will the charge of the magazine offset the costs?
Consider training that might be needed – photography, article writing, ICT?
Hold a meeting to discuss what is worth reporting and assign roles and articles
Think about what is worth reporting? Will it help praise and promote individuals and the school? Is there a balance of whole school activity?
Always target big school events, these make great deadlines!
Get writing, encourage paired writing, editing, proof-reading and dictionary use. Consider how students can meet their writing targets.
Explore which photographs work best to support the articles.
Set deadlines for the writing and the magazine layout arrangement.
Publish
Always celebrate a finished magazine! Free copies for the team! Count the profits, what are you saving for? Encourage the departing students to lead the training of new students before leaving.
