The newspaper industry is one of the most important topics for GCSE Media Studies. That’s one of the reasons we started the year with a Y10 visit to the Guardian newspaper offices in King’s Cross.

As well as teaching students the practical skills of journalism, we aim make students media-literate. This means they have the skills to decode the language of the media – which in the case of newspapers means headlines, text, images, design, even the organisation and layout of the article on the page.

By the end of the course, our students should be able question the news they read, taking into consideration the values, politics and bias of the different newspapers.

This skill is especially important in the era of Covid-19. The news we are receiving about the virus is coming from a variety of sources, some of which cannot be trusted. In the digital era of feeds, tweets and posts, the news is so much more fast-moving and persuasive.

That’s why we are recommending that students follow BBC Young Reporters at twitter.com/BBCYoungReport.

It’s a great feed full of engaging advice about how to spot fake news in social media, where to find responsible reporting, ways in which you can upload content to news organisations and even a guide to filming news footage with your mobile phone.

Highly recommended for independent thinkers!