Pupils learn about life in print

The Year 6 youngsters started off by becoming detectives for the day after a “crime scene” was set up in their classroom.

The scenario centred around a stolen laptop and clues left by the “thief”.

Teacher and phase leader Leanne Bateson explained: “The children wrote descriptions of the crime scene and took photographs of all the clues.

“We also had the police and a Police Community Support Officer in to talk to the children about how to find fingerprints, how the police use them and the children even had a chance to take their own fingerprints and identify the different types.”

The children went on to write up a newspaper report about the incident. One of the pupils wrote: “Unfortunately a laptop was stolen, which had SATs papers on it. The children were happy - no SATs - or were they?

“As to why this event happened, all the staff and students were discombobulated throughout the school day.

“The reason is unknown, but whoever was in the classroom got what they wanted!”

The work was then shown to Scarborough News content editor Susan Stephenson who went into school to talk to the class about journalism.

Miss Bateson said the children were “inspired” by the activity and the talk and it had got them thinking about different career paths.

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Scarborough News content editor Susan Stephenson chats to pupils and staff about newspapers 160510a

Examples of the children’s news stories

The classroom “crime scene” where pupils had to crack clues