When visiting schools, I regularly get asked for advice on writing a school newsletter. Some schools already publish a school newsletter or magazine and some are wanting to get a group of students together to get one started.
There are two things to consider: how to find the news and what sort of content to put in your magazine.
A school is a community just like a small town or village and there are lots of things going on in and out of school that other people might find interesting to read about.
Some things may involve a bit of ‘finding out’ and you might want one or two reporters on your team to be in charge of this. It’s great if you can feature sport, music or other achievements that students have attained outside of school time. You may find out that someone has been picked to appear in the West End through their dance school, or take part in a national competition on the radio or the television. This really involves keeping your ear to the ground, reading local newspapers and having friends in other years to pass on any information to you that they hear about.
Within school, events, visits and school residentials all make great articles. It’s nice if you can get someone who was involved to write a piece for the newsletter and provide some photographs.
Other content ideas include:
• Profile on a student or teacher
• School Council news
• Questions to the Head
• Information – such as changes to lunch times, key dates,lessons, after-school clubs.
• New buildings or classrooms
• Teacher retirement or appointment.
• Quiz or puzzle submitted by a child each month
• Any information from school letters that may need reiterating
• Lunch menu?
• Focus on different after school clubs
• Work experience
• Duke of Edinburgh
• Sports/Academic/Music achievements
• Any national or local awards accredited to the school
• Community work or volunteering
• Fundraising
• Focus on Sixth form
• Careers information
• Teacher training at the school
• National events such as The Big Draw and BBC School Report
• School diary dates
The list goes on and on! Once you start thinking about it, there will be loads of things you can put in your school newsletter to make it interesting and informative to students and parents alike.