With gang culture sweeping the nation, we looked into how rap music can encourage violence and crime.

Our original story was a debate over young Vs old in today's society, however we decided to focus on the influence rap music has on gang culture as this is a pressing subject in today's teen scene.

We gained information by contacting Paul Burns of the Tees Music Alliance, who in turn suggested inviting SOLZAF founder and creative producer, Dominic Nelson Ashley. They gave their views about whether or not rap music has an influence on young people. We then expressed our personal opinions on the subject.

Our story was presented as a radio news broadcast, pre-recorded and edited together with the help of BBC Tees staff.

The hardest part of the experience was being interviewed on the spot and under pressure, also there was a strict deadline to meet.

The best bit of the experience was seeing all our work put together and admiring the final product. It was fun interviewing new and interesting people with different views on our story.

We would strongly advise taking part in next years School Report as it's a really enjoyable and interesting experience for everyone involved.

Listen to the report here (realplayer required)

Our team decided to do a report on show business.

We chased up on the story by interviewing local talent, Jessica Robinson, and the director of Stage Coach Performing Arts School, Trudy Hindmarsh, at BBC Radio Tees.

We used various formats for presenting our story such as a radio interview, video interviews and actually going live on the radio with the presenter Alex Hall.

Trudy gave us her views on hidden talents within the North East and how reality shows can affect people wanting to go into show business.

The hardest part of our experience was thinking of the questions to ask and remaining focused during interviews.

If we had the chance to make it better next time we would do more research for our chosen story.

The best bit for us was going live on the radio and getting to know more about Jessica and Trudy.

This experience has made us think more of a career in media and we have learned about different aspects of making deadlines and writing reports.

If anybody was to ask for advice about taking part in the school report, we would tell them to take part and enjoy the experience as we thoroughly have.

Listen to the report here (Realplayer Required)

 

Our team decided to do a report on the loss of old buildings in Middlesbrough.

We researched some buildings on the Internet and then whilst at BBC Tees we went out in the public doing vox pops and had interviews with the Mayor of Middlesbrough, Ray Mallon and with Rob Nichols, who runs the website Lost Teesside, asking them their opinions about our heritage.

The hardest part of our experience was probably the interviews with people we didn't know and the vox pops as a lot of people rejected us.

This was when we done vox pops in the town centre. If we could repeat this experience we would probably do more research into the depth of our subject matter.

As a group we really enjoyed meeting the Mayor and going around the town centre asking random people questions.

It has made us consider working in news or radio in the future because it has seemed quite fun but also very hard work.

Anyone who was thinking of participating in next year's School Report we would thoroughly recommend it as it is an enjoyable experience.

Listen to the report here (Realplayer Required)

 

 

Our team decided to report on animal cruelty.

We spent time looking up animal cruelty on the internet and looking at individual cases and at Radio Tees we also interviewed a Press Officer from Sadberge Dog’s Trust and her dog Paddy.

We also gathered our class-mates opinions on animal cruelty and the convictions given to those who commit the crime.

We recorded a radio package to present our report. We found that the hardest part of the experience was getting our class-mates opinions as they sometimes gave short and un-informative answers because they were nervous about being recorded.

If we could make anything better we would have prepared a wider variety of questions for the Dog’s Trust press officer.

We felt that the best bit was meeting the dog who had been rehomed.

This experience has made us think about working in news or radio as a career.

 

Listen to the report here (Realplayer Required)