So you delivered your NewsWise unit of work, and your pupils loved talking about and critically questioning the news. Watching and talking about news is now a weekly activity in your classes, and you even started a new school newspaper! But how can you support your pupils to keep consuming news and discussing what they see, read and hear, beyond the classroom?
Team NewsWise recently found ourselves attempting to answer that question in the company of 35 local parents, children and teachers at the iconic Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, alongside two brilliant local journalists - Ian McNeal, Digital editor at Teesside Live and Gary Philipson, BBC Tees presenter - and the (rather more hairy) Roary the Lion, mascot for Middlesbrough Football Club.
Why? Because recent research commissioned by NewsWise from the National Literacy Trust shows that while children prefer talking about fake news with their family rather than friends or teachers, many are missing out on the opportunity to do so. We know that the increasing use of mobile phones and tablets as a source of news content has led to news consumption becoming a more solitary activity. Indeed, according to the National Literacy Trust’s research, two in five parents (39%) said they never watch, listen to or read news with their child at home and one in five (21%) never talk to their child about news. This challenge is even more acute for children from disadvantaged communities, whose parents are more likely to never watch, listen to or read news with them (45% vs 37%) and to believe they don’t have the skills to spot fake news (52% vs 39%) than parents from more advantaged backgrounds.
The research revealed that half of UK parents are worried about the impact of fake news and misinformation on their children’s lives (50%) and don’t think their children have the skills to spot it (52%). What’s more, two in five parents (40%) admitted to falling for fake news themselves.
In response to this challenge – and to parents’ calls for greater support to help their children understand news – NewsWise has started a UK tour of family news festivals over the coming year to give children and parents new and exciting opportunities to explore news together. Which brings us back to Middlesbrough Football Club and Roary the Lion. Our new workshops give families an opportunity to work together to navigate the news and explore topics such as bias, rumour, clickbait, manipulated images, truth and trustworthiness and become ‘Fake News Detectives’. Thanks to the MFC Foundation, participants from Abingdon Primary School also took part in a mock press conference in Riverside Stadium’s media suite, got a journalist’s-eye-view of the pitch from the press box and interviewed local journalists about their jobs.
Both children and adults told us they learned something new, but more than this, we hope we inspired and supported parents to explore conversations and questions about the news so children can learn at home as well as in the classroom.
We’ll be running family workshops across the UK from November onwards. To find out more follow us @GetNewsWise.
