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Year 11 History students thoroughly enjoyed a fantastic opportunity to visit the Guardian Education Centre in London to take part in a workshop to support their study of the Civil Rights movement.

The session began with an introduction to race relations and the fight for civil rights in the USA during the 1950s and 1960s. The students were then required to work in groups to create a newspaper front page using original archive news stories from The Guardian and Observer from the 1950s and 1960s. 

During the day, the girls took on various roles and tasks, all with realistically tight deadlines. They began the workshop by using the ‘wires’, just as journalists would, to write three key news stories from across the period. The girls had great guidance from the Guardian journalists and got stuck in following their instructions.

In the afternoon, their roles were switched to editing and each student had to act as a sub-editor, proofreading stories and coming up with engaging headlines. They also became picture editors, selecting and preparing the best pictures and writing captions to go with their stories. 

The last task of the day was for the girls to take on the role of the production editors, getting their newspaper front pages ready for print. 

Having learnt new skills, at the end of what had been a hugely interesting day, the girls came away with a professionally produced front page set of news reports and a great insight into the world of journalism throughout history.