Students join the news beat

Media students at South Hedland Senior High School have been brushing up their writing skills with local journalists, who visited their classes last week.

Students in Years 7, 8 and 9 learnt about writing for a career, studying at university and the day-to-day tasks of working at a newspaper from North West Telegraph staff.

Acting principal David Taylor said writing and literacy in general was a vital skill.

“Writing, communicating in the community — literacy generally is one of the most important skills a student can leave the school with to engage in the workplace, it’s essential,” he said. “Any community engagement in terms of career pathways is welcome — one of the things I’ve noticed about Port Hedland is the huge willingness for industry to get involved at that level with our students.”

Teacher Imogen Williams said it was the first year lower school students could choose to study media.

“Students have been enjoying the process and learning news skills that they can transfer into other subjects,” she said.

“The Year 8s focusing on advertising, Year 7s on news and cyber safety and the Year 9s focusing on gaming.”