BUDDING journalists from Chantry High School participated in a fun day making their own newspaper.Year eight pupils from the school in Mallard Way, Ipswich, took part in the Evening Star's Well Read challenge, designed to improve their literacy skills.

BUDDING journalists from Chantry High School participated in a fun day making their own newspaper.

Year eight pupils from the school in Mallard Way, Ipswich, took part in the Evening Star's Well Read challenge, designed to improve their literacy skills.

The 12-year-olds worked in groups of four or five and each team had to produce a four-page A3 paper before the end of their school day.

Each newspaper had the same story on its front page as the reporters were given pieces of information throughout the day at "press conferences", as if it was a breaking news story.

The pupils had control over what other stories they wanted to write about and these ranged from David Beckham's move to Real Madrid to pages full of celebrity gossip.

Nicki Gower, an English teacher at the school, believes it was an enjoyable way of improving the writing techniques for the 90 pupils that were involved.

She said: "All the pupils completed the task and had a fantastic day. The idea is to raise standards of literacy, being able to write to inform and increase their awareness of non-fiction. I would not be surprised if some of them became journalists.

"The papers looked very colourful and were packed full of stories. Everyone had a role to play to make the newspaper a success and they all pulled together as a team. They thoroughly enjoyed it and were very excited as it got towards the deadline."