Newsday 2008

Newsday 2008 celebrated the culmination of this year's competition in the usual style: with a party! In fact, this year, we had 2 parties, each at a different venue!

As always, the standard of newspapers, web-sites and podcasts was amazingly high, from Key Stage 1 right through to the top, and we had entries from all over the world, putting Newsday into a class of its own as a truly international and prestigious competition!

On Thursday, the 19th of June, the runners up came together at AlphaSmart's offices in the heart of London's Docklands, close to Canary Wharf. 160 excited children, together with their teachers came from all over the UK, and after looking around the office and the surrounding docks, they spent a while experimenting with AlphaSmart Neos, where the children had an opportunity to show their teachers just how easy they are to use! As the formalities began, Brian Robinson, creator of Newsday, invited the youngest child to come and cut the cake so the party could begin.

More pictures in the Gallery

On Friday, we had a second party, this time in The Guardian's Newsroom. This was for the winners from all the various categories, including a school team that had come all the way from Germany especially to collect their award, and a father from Northern Ireland who came to pick up 2 awards on behalf of his son.

Staff and pupils had a fascinating opportunity to look around the Newsroom museum, as well as listen to a talk on the history of the Guardian from Alan Rusbridger, its current editor. Alan was clearly impressed by the quality and style of the entries, and mentioned that he hoped that the young editors and journalists wouldn't all try to become newspaper editors too quickly as he'd quite like to keep his job a little longer! It was also interesting to hear that real newspapers take 18 hours to produce, whereas most Newsday papers are produced in only 12 hours, just adding to the pressure of production.

More pictures in the Gallery

At last, the serious business of announcing winners began. Amidst great excitement, each team of winners came down to receive their award and their prize of a Neo from AlphaSmart. We even had the unusual situation where a mother and her daughter were both there with their pupils, each to collect awards, but from different schools!

AlphaSmart has been sponsoring Newsday for several years now, and as many schools know, Neo is probably the best writing tool that can be used simply, quickly and easily both inside and outside the classroom. It is frequently the choice of authors and journalists, using it for their everyday professional writing.

Check out the list of Newsday winners, and please do go and have a look at the Gallery, where we have some of the pictures taken from both days.

If you have pictures you would like to see added to the Gallery, then please send them to UK-info@alphasmart.com