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This year's BBC School Report day was extra special as Harris City Academy Crystal Palace students were invited up to BBC HQ at Broadcasting House in central London to work on producing a live TV newscast.

The six Year 10 students: Pika Kos, Luke Stimpson, Noal Tomlins, Kayley Ford, Isobel Imade and Fuad Cali-Liban were very excited as they travelled up to London at 7.30 in the morning. They talked of their ambitions and the careers that they wanted.  All that was to change after a day at the BBC.

The students had a very full agenda: they watched the news channel being piloted from the Director's gallery then went into a news selection meeting where they made choices of stories based on their target audience.  Once chosen they split in to groups to select images, write straps and create news copy to be loaded on to autocue.  Fuad went off with Senior Producer David Waddell to create a news package on School Report Day: he worked with a film crew, interviewed some of the 400 School Reporters who were at the BBC that day and scripted, edited and recorded a finished package. 

Luke and Kayley went into the VR (Virtual) studio to practice being news presenters.  They were sat in a huge green space surrounded by remote controlled cameras and sound recording equipment.  They learnt how to listen to the Director, use the autocue, and smile and look relaxed all at the same time!  Noah presented the news round up, Pika prepared for her live interview with BBC Global Health Correspondent Tulip Mazumdar, and Izzy learnt the technicalities of being an Assistant Floor Manager.

All the students were amazing: even when the autocue went down with 10 seconds to air, Kayley kept her cool!

The day was rounded off with a live interview on the BBC News channel with presenter Emily Maitlis and a bit of 'star spotting' on the way home (Nile Rogers, John Snow, Gordon Ramsey and All Time Low to be precise!).