St Eoghan's P.S. make front page news!

Primary 5 and 6 pupils from St Eoghan’s Primary School have greatly enjoyed participating in the 2023 Irish News Young News-Readers Media Project.  Our pupils were delighted to be judged the winning class overall from over 6,500 pupils participating, and deemed so because of the commitment and enthusiasm of all pupils throughout the project!!

The prize was a very special “behind the scenes” peek at the brand-new Irish News offices in Belfast, where the pupils had the opportunity to meet Noel Doran (Editor) and explore the new state-of-the-art offices and Q Radio studio.  The children got the chance to practise their radio presenting skills live on Q Radio, and of course when DJ Yazz asked if they would like to sing a song, there was only one tune it could be – “We’re off to see the Wizard”, ahead of our upcoming “Wizard of Oz” production.

To finish off the day, the pupils visited the Interpress printing facility, where they saw first-hand how an edition of the paper is printed and prepared for delivery to shops across Ireland, and the finale was the class making front page news on the newspaper that was printed as the pupils watched on!

The Young News Readers Medica project is is a cross-curricular literacy project that aims to introduce a new generation of readers to the power of the news.  In this project, children from both primary and post-primary schools receive weekly school editions of the newspaper covering important topics and issues affecting young people today. 

St Eoghan’s Primary School are very grateful to the Irish News for this wonderful opportunity to promote literacy learning in a fun and relatable way.  The Young News Readers Media is sponsored by Fujitsu, EY, Exploris NI and St Mary’s University College, and the guest editor of the School Edition is Annette Kelly from Little Penny Thoughts.  Transport to and from Belfast was sponsored by Translink.  We would also like to think Grainne McCaffrey and Niamh Hamill for their superb organisation of our trip, as well as Errol Doherty for guiding us around Q Radio and answering all our questions!

Newspaper readers of the future – watch out for the budding journalists from St Eoghan’s! We are sure that you will see and hear so much more from these pupils in the future! We also believe that there may be a few very well-known Q Radio DJs who feel they may be about to lose their jobs to P.5 & 6 from St Eoghan’s!