That reputation has changed dramatically. In all the schools I visited, I learnt how the study of the media is regarded as a crucial part of an all-round education, supporting the development of literacy skills and promoting a sense of citizenship and inclusion. In some locations, the message was stronger: studying media, the way it works and the way it intersects with our lives today helps young people establish and manage their lives in the digital space, something that never crossed my mind I’d need to do when I was at school thirty years ago.

What the students said

I was surprised that I’d gone into the project with assumptions about teenagers. I’ve never felt at ease interviewing people in a school environment. Far too many memories of my own school days come flooding back. Would the students be nonplussed? Would they poke fun? Would they understand the questions?

Every student demonstrated an eagerness to find out what I was doing, what I did at the BBC and wanted to help. And when they sat down to answer my questions what they said did often blow me away. One 13 year old boy in Lampeter talked about the story he worked on about LGBT rights in India. He talked about the experience in a completely matter of fact way. Thirty years ago at school, I couldn’t even imagine anyone in my school even talking about such a subject let alone producing some writing about it and then proudly telling others.

Another student in Birmingham spoke of how she thought BBC School Report gave ‘the voiceless a voice’. And in North Shields, one teenager explained he really wanted to be a lawyer. “What inspired you to want to work in law?” I asked him. “You’re probably going to laugh at me,” he said apologetically, “but I really enjoy Suits – that’s what got me interested in law.” And there, another assumption challenged, the one we usually projected in a negative way: TV does influence the younger generation and for good too.

I don’t feel I can take the credit for the insights we managed to capture from the students.  Interviews had to be optimised to give each contributor the space they felt they needed to say what they wanted. At the same time it was important to realise that unlike the usual fast-paced environment where most visitors who appear on camera are there because they’re practised in the art of doing ‘a talking head’, not everybody is necessarily at ease talking to camera.

How could I help contributors feel more at ease? I asked parents and former teachers (from my schooldays) who are friends on Facebook. “Get them to talk about something they are really excited about,” said my former history teacher, “get them to tell you as though they were telling their best friend.” And a particular nod should go to former BBC R&D staffer and parent Ant Miller whose list of ‘questions to ask children at the end of their school day’ was invaluable. “Tell me about the best thing that has happened today” is a particular favourite.

What really impressed me was the confidence which our younger contributors spoke with.  They were at ease reflecting on how School Report helped them develop personally, a real surprise for me was how School Report News Days brought students of different age-groups across a school together in a way they wouldn’t normally collaborate. One person mentioned how immersing himself in the experience transformed his appetite and interest in news. George (see above) demonstrated how School Report could change someone’s assumptions about journalists themselves.

The students views were echoed by their teachers, who in all cases underlined how School Report went beyond journalism, that it helped promote a sense of independence amongst participants and complemented studies by providing a different ‘way in’ for topics which perhaps would be more challenging to introduce into a more orthodox everyday learning environment. The overwhelming message I took away with me was how School Report in a school environment was something which on the day almost powered itself.

Showing the finished product to Helen

Editing multiple contributions together can be quite demanding. People you don’t know who you see in clip after clip after clip, suddenly get burnt into your psyche simply as a result of visual familiarity. A tension emerges between needing to keep clips ‘punchy’ and wanting to respect each contributor’s need for space. Each subsequent edit feels like you’re cutting off a contributor’s limb in a sustained frenzied attack.

But there is a flip side to the editing process. Playing over a film to check transitions, colours and levels transforms a variety of different spoken contributions into something approaching music. I suspect that was one of the reasons why I was keen to share the rough-cuts with School Report editor Helen Shreeve before we sat down to talk. 

There was another reason. There was almost a hint of “Look what all these people are saying about the thing you and your team have worked hard to produce.” Here was an opportunity to throw light on one of the BBC’s highly valued endeavours and in the process of doing so reveal the human side of it. That’s something we sometimes overlook when we think of an organisation in terms of its scale or its impact.

Helen’s words reflected what I had learnt from some of the students: that journalism has at its core some really important transferrable skills. I’ve learnt that a little late in life (at least, later than I would have liked), but it is terribly reassuring to hear.

Jon Jacob is Editor, About the BBC Blog

• Find out more about the project on the BBC News School Report website. 
• Discover what BBC School Reporters have reported on. 
• Lesson plans and other resources are available for teachers.
• Find out about next year's School Report and sign-up to the newsletter. 
• Follow @BBCSchoolReport on Twitter

In my younger and more vulnerable years I lived in a small cathedral city – the kind of place where the local front-page headlines boast such excitement as “Gardener Fights For Plot” and with a football club famed for a bizarre on-pitch appearance by Michael Jackson. This probably partly explains why, since moving to London, I fell in love with Norwich – home of a football club famed for a bizarre on-pitch outburst from Delia Smith, front-page headlines such as “Parking Permits D-Day”, as well as lovely old streets full of tiny shops, restaurants, pubs and dozens of churches.

“Dear Mayor, why is [sic] there so many churches in your town?” I wrote to the Mayor of Norwich shortly after my first non-business visit, aged approximately 29 years old. I received a charming reply from said Mayor explaining about the markets and guilds of the 15th century, which further endeared me to the place. One of those churches is now Norwich Arts Centre, my favourite live music venue of its size anywhere in the country, and in recent years I’ve returned many times to see gigs there.

So when Radio 1 announced it was holding Big Weekend 2015 in the home of Alan Partridge, and when I heard that the BBC Experience would be on site and was looking for volunteers, I was very keen to get involved.

The BBC Experience is a giant inflatable golf ball, filled with interactive exhibits showcasing all aspects of the Corporation. It’s travelling the country throughout 2015, giving audiences a chance to try their hands at presenting radio programmes, sports commentating, reading the news, being a weather forecaster or appearing in a Doctor Who promo picture – contents may vary, terms and conditions apply. Not only that, but it’s staffed by smiling, enthusiastic volunteers from across the Corporation, all “here to help” and keen to share their BBC experiences with the public.

As a part of my duties, m’boss Emma Russell requested a piece to camera showing the wider public the treasures that could be found within the inflatable ball. The doors were about to open and we had a limited amount of “on air” time, so I grabbed the nearest water bottle (pro tip: where no microphone is to hand, plastic bottles make cheap and effective substitutes) and led her and her smart phone on a whistlestop guided tour. We only had one collision, so that was quite successful. You can see the resulting video below:

Big Weekend opened to the public at midday each day, and the BBC Experience tent was open until 5pm. I began my first shift next to The Voice chair. However, this area quickly became quite congested with persons queueing to have their photo taken with The Doctor, and there was a limited amount of things I could say about it, especially to the guest who’d never heard of The Voice – “basically, it’s just a chair” she concluded, after I’d demonstrated its fully-operational voting button and given her an enthused explanation of its cultural significance.

Thereafter, I spent much of my time in the news and weather section. I absolutely loved it. Seating the newsreaders, speaking over the headset to the controllers backstage, operating the autocue, adjusting the camera, encouraging the weather people to “say what you see!” – and taking photos of the participants so that they could propagate themselves on social media – this was a full-on role, but one which I relished. After an hour and a half or so, I’d pop backstage for a cup of tea and a biscuit, and then it was back in again, back for more pretending-to-direct-the-news.

Visitors to the tent also had the opportunity to chat with local presenters such as Susie Fowler-Watt, who expressed her hope that no one was going to be too good at news reading and do her out of a job. Many people commented that it was far more difficult than they’d expected, to follow the words on the autocue while maintaining eye contact with the camera and keeping up a cheery, varied tone of voice. Many were astonished to learn that there was no script for the weather and that the clouds etc. don’t show up on the wall behind you but only on the screen. “It’s a lot harder than it looks,” they all said, agreeing that it was best left to the qualified professionals.

For a small town, Norwich has a strong and vibrant music scene, and BBC Introducing in Norfolk has been instrumental in bringing much of this to a wider audience on Radio 1. Ed Sheeran – from nearby Framlingham in Suffolk - himself started out round these parts. I was looking forward to checking out all that Norwich has to offer in the vicinity of the BBC Introducing stage – however, due to a combination of my exuberance in the BBC Experience tent and the resulting exhaustion, this was not to be. However – all was not lost – as on the Sunday afternoon we were visited in the tent by Rosie and Ellie from art-punk band Fever Fever, veterans of the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury in 2011, who wanted to have a go at reading the news and presenting the weather. I did try to capture their presentation on video but in my over-excitement I must have pressed the wrong button or something. I hope you can all forgive me.

Over the course of the weekend we had around 1,500 visitors and printed off a total of 1,261 Doctor Who green screen photographs. For safety reasons the tent can only accommodate 40 people at a time (including staff) and we had a queue outside throughout – except when The Vaccines were on.

By the time we closed late on Sunday afternoon I was pretty tired, but then it was time to go out and enjoy the festival experience. Taylor Swift! Foo Fighters! Queueing for toilets! Can I just say to the people of Norwich: your queueing etiquette is exemplary.

All in all, this was a brilliant weekend, and volunteering with the BBC Experience was one of the best things I’ve done this year. It’s great to get out and engage with audiences, hear what they have to say about our content and give them a taste of what happens “behind the scenes” – and also it’s good to meet other colleagues from around the country and talk about the different kinds of work we all do.

But mostly, if I’m honest, it was fun to play at being a director on the studio floor – “3, 2, 1, and… live!”

Charley Stone is BBC Previews and Promo Clips assistant and BBC Experience volunteer.

The election is past - and with it the chance to vote for the MPs who will sit in the UK Parliament.

Voting is something I feel strongly about. As a woman and a Catholic - two groups that did not always have the vote in the UK - but also as a result of filming in South Africa following the first post-apartheid election. The image of a young black South African woman kissing her voting paper with sheer joy is one that I will never forget.

So I was particularly glad that BBC Outreach was able to work with programme departments in Bristol and Birmingham, exploring with groups of young people the issues that concern them in the context of the election. 

For many of the young people we worked with, the 2015 general election would have been their first chance to exercise their right to vote - a right they did not necessarily value or see as important. 

In Birmingham, BBC Outreach held an event aimed at first time voters. We wanted to find out which issues were important to them and explore how they might make their voices heard. It was a lively, interactive event with the theme: ‘If you want my vote…’

It was part of an initiative called #brumvotes, set up by the BBC to interest younger voters in the election and generate programme content that they’d enjoy, especially online. We worked with BBC WM and Midlands Today, too. 

Crucially, this was a politician-free zone: we were looking at what really mattered to those participating, not at how their views aligned with specific political parties.

We started the evening by exploring lots of different ideas - at one point writing comments on a life-sized model of the No 10 Downing Street door - culminating in competitively pitching programme formats to a panel of experts which included local broadcast journalist Noel Phillips, presenter Nikki Tapper and spoken word artist Deci4Life. 

Early on, a discussion revealed a wide range of concerns about different topics: education - ‘free wifi for all and free bus passes’,  crime - ‘harsher sentences for rapists’, finance - ‘stop corporate tax dodging’, politicians - ‘a load of rich kids making decisions for poor people’.

But soon the discussion turned to how these concerns might make compelling programmes. For example, the comment, ‘I’d like to see some politicians do an all-nighter bar shift’ was worked up into a programme idea where politicians would actually spend a day or longer living the life of a young person, with all its challenges. ‘I’d definitely watch that’, was the comment.

An underlying message to the politicians was: ‘Talk to us in language we actually understand’. This wasn’t about vocabulary or comprehension - it was about finding the means to talk with young people in ways which relate to their experience. 

In Weston-super-Mare we ran a project with Weston College, ‘Your Voice Counts’, encouraging young people to make a film about the pros and cons of voting. Their report and conclusions can be seen here. We also ran sessions with BBC local radio stations in Bristol, Gloucester and with Radio 4’s Any Questions.

As a public service broadcaster, we need to make sure we have programmes and online content which educate, entertain and inform our younger audiences. If we don’t, we’ll get left behind. It can be argued that the sections of the audience which are growing fastest - young people, black, asian and minority ethnic groups, as well as people who are less well off - are some of the people we could serve a lot better.

So we make an effort to attract young people to work with us - we value their ideas and creativity. There are a number of schemes designed to do this - from work experience through internships to apprenticeships at all levels.

And it’s beginning to work.

The Outreach team for the Birmingham event included Talisha Johnson, a broadcast assistant trainee, who joined the BBC as one of the Director General’s local radio apprentices.

Talisha worked with the team to put together the event, and recorded and edited a package for the Chatback programme on BBC WM.  Jade Richards, who has just started work as a Radio 1 intern, and was recruited through the 1Xtra Live outreach event in Birmingham, also took part in the workshop, judging programme ideas as well as writing and performing a poem:  ‘If you want my vote’ - you can see Jade performing an extract from her poem here.  

Not all of the work we did with first time voters was with young people. At one of the Outreach sessions we did in Weston-super-Mare, one first time voter was aged 75. But that’s another story...

All of these activities meet a fundamental Outreach principle - that they should be mutually beneficial - to the participants and also to the BBC and its audiences - building skills and knowledge with the young people and gaining valuable audience insights for us.

At the end of the Birmingham day, local radio apprentice Talisha and I decided to do a ‘blog off’ - we’d both write a blog about our experience. This is mine. And you can read Talisha’s blog here - the first of many, I hope, from one of the BBC’s up-and-coming journalists.

Diane Reid, Head of Outreach & Corporate Responsibility

Toby Mildon leads the Diversity & Inclusion team in BBC Future Media as the department attempts to increase the diversity of its staff. In this post he reports on last week’s People with Disabilities in Technology – Networking & Development Day which coincided with Reflect and Represent, a week of activity to promote diversity across the BBC and saw 50 invited attendees gather at MediaCityUK to find out more about BBC Future Media and the work it does.

The BBC is one of the most renowned story tellers globally and strives to be one of the most creative organisations in the world.  We can only do this with an array of first-rate skilled and talented people working across the corporation, offering their diverse abilities and life-experiences.  

 At the present time the BBC is striving to increase the number of disabled people working at the BBC to 5.3% (5.0% for those in leadership roles). And in pursuit of that, the BBC recently announced plans to appoint a new Disability Exec who would be responsible for championing disabled talent and projects across the BBC. That role is currently in recruitment and applications close next Monday. The work of our existing schemes to offer employment opportunities to disabled staff continues with our Elev8 and Extend schemes. 

We know that 3.4% of BBC Future Media are impaired in some way because they chose to disclose their disability. Comparing that figure with the wider BBC, the total of disabled staff is 3.8%.

In Future Media, we’re determined to address this gap within our own workforce to better reflect the diversity of our licence fee payers in pursuit of the best digital products.  And on Friday 6th March we moved a step closer by hosting the second People with Disabilities in Technology Development and Networking Day (#BBCPDT) at MediaCityUK. Over 50 invited attendees took part including graduates through to those with some professional experience. All of the attendees were looking to advance their careers in digital media and technology, but don’t presently work for the BBC.

Tara O’Reilly, Head of Business Operations, started the day off by providing a little background about Future Media. Explaining our commitment to inclusion and diversity, Tara quoted Tony Hall's speech outlining how the organisation is to become "an internet-first BBC which belongs to everyone and where everyone belongs". Presentations followed from Richard Southorn, BBC HR Direct Access Unit Manager, and Paul Bepey, Chair of BBC Ability (the network for staff with disabilities) and Assistive Technology Manager, who leads the Assistive Technology service for the BBC.

We also screened ‘A Film About Disability’, something we featured on the About the BBC Blog a year ago.

BBC Disability Affairs Correspondent Nikki Fox facilitated a Think Tank discussion exploring the issues of attraction, recruitment and retention of people with disabilities within the technology industry with conversations including the questions: When does someone disclose an impairment? What are the best reasonable adjustments? How accessible are online application forms? Why should employers hire people with disabilities?  

The group spent the afternoon working together in masterclasses acquiring new skills and experience from The Blue Room team, design research methods from the BBC’s User Experience & Design, and discovered how BBC iPlayer is responsively built for multiple screen sizes and devices and how the BBC Operations team keep BBC Online available 24 hours every day.  

We spent the rest of the afternoon in a personal development session on overcoming obstacles of unconscious bias.  This session explored our personal biases, how they impact upon recruitment and what tools we can use to overcome them.  The workshop also focused on personal branding, self-belief and how best to sell oneself in an interview.  

Dr Phil Friend closed the day with his keynote speech.  Friend says "life deals us cards and we must play those cards to our best advantage".  By the end of the day the mood in MediaCityUK was uplifting.

We hope that this event helped BBC Future Media challenge the underrepresentation of people with disabilities working in the team.  We addressed some of the myths of working in our industry and showcased the inclusive culture that the BBC already has.  Ultimately, we opened our doors to a diverse community of people with essential abilities, skills and experiences, which are crucial in delivering greater value and quality to our audience, who, quite rightly, expect nothing less.  One attendee told me that he always thought the BBC was a diverse organisation but now he knows that we are serious about it.

Toby Mildon is Diversity & Inclusion Lead, BBC Future Media

• See all the pictures from the event
• Find out more about the recruitment of a pan-BBC Disability Executive to champion disabled talent and projects (applications for the job close next Monday)
• Read about Challenging disabled staff targets to be reached by 2017: 5.3% for all staff and 5%for those in leadership roles
• Visit the Disability microsite

It’s called Technacool and we’ve invited 80 girls in Year 9 from schools near our London sites; they’ll take part in various workshops based on real jobs – like how to fix an online Radio 1 film when it doesn’t look like it should or deciding whether or not to launch a new app.  Some of the girls will be creating their own fantasy Strictly Come Dancing line up in a coding exercise and they’ll all be shown around New Broadcasting House on a Tech Tour.

Technology careers can be hard to picture, especially if it’s not something you have experience of, and they vary immensely.  It’s rarely just people sat in computer labs or staring into screens. By giving the girls a short taster of a few different available career paths, we’re hoping they’ll agree with us that a technical career can be creative, fun and rewarding.  There is still a gender imbalance in the IT industry and we’re hoping this will inspire some future female technologists.

BBC Future Media is the part of the BBC that looks after things like iPlayer, Red Button and BBC Online – basically, anything for our audiences who want to access and interact with BBC programmes and services through the internet.  Across the BBC, we aim to be an inclusive employer and we value diversity – therefore, addressing the gender imbalance in the IT industry is a priority for BBC Future Media.  We make the best products for our audiences when our staff reflect those audiences.

We’re really excited about the event and looking forward to meeting the girls and showing them what we do! 

Lyn Picken is Diversity & Networking Inclusion Manager, BBC Future Media

The Real Stories Challenge was a one day workshop taking place between two venues in the heart of the community - the brand new Enterprise Centre and the long established Three Trees Community Centre.

It was a workshop concentrating on factual story telling. However, this workshop was not just about telling the young people how programmes are made, story lines are developed or how characters are chosen. This event showed them. Led by Steve Rawling from the BBC's Creative Leadership programme, the young people took part in a series of sessions – brainstorming ideas with BBC staff volunteers from various areas including TV, Radio and Online, production staff and apprentices.

It was to culminate in the young people coming face to face with a panel from the BBC.

In the morning the young people told us what they want from BBC content  - drama, humour and realism were all there – but so too was genuine concern and truth.

In the afternoon they showed us. Working with a group of graffiti artists, the teams developed some emotionally charged, creative pitches and story boards ready for a Dragons’ Den-style panel of editors and senior programme makers from BBC Birmingham and a contributor from the BBC Three series.

The subject matter was as varied - teenage dads, coming out of prison, plans for the new high-speed rail link through Birmingham communities. One by one, the teams went in to meet the panel. Nerves were overcome, stories acted out. For many this was their first time presenting to an audience and they did so with calmness and confidence. They delivered their pitches with clarity of voice and tone, ensuring that each person had the opportunity to speak and say why their idea should be picked.

And in doing so they met the criteria required in the curriculum for English and Literacy supporting speaking, listening and contributing to a discussion - tangible skills.

Pitches now made and deliberations undertaken, two semi-finalists were chosen - the stories of "James the Carer" & "Coby the Hobo". It was now time for the showcase final - the face to face pitch in front of everyone.

Unfortunately for the "James" team, one of them had had to leave to care for a relative - and that's just it - these are the realities of life for some young people here - these are the real stories of Chelmsley Wood.

In the other group (a group of young people who met through an employment skills course) were several young people who'd been reticent to speak up - now they were standing in front of around 50 people - telling everyone else what matters to them.

It was time for the public, well - room, vote. It was tight, it was tense and it was noisy... who would receive the loudest acclaim? Coby's story just clinched it.

This is a place where BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility, audiences and programme making come together  – it’s not just about telling a local community that the BBC is here to reflect their lives – it’s about showing them we can listen by meeting face to face, working with them and taking their ideas forward.

It had started out quietly - in the end there was a lot to make a noise about. And with the panel already speaking about which stories and experiences could make BBC programmes, well I guess everyone's a winner, aren't they?

Katy Stead is a project manager for BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility.

• Find out more about BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility.

I love St Pauls Carnival. It’s hours of fun. 

In truth, despite appearances, I’m not particularly a party animal. I’m last on the dance floor at family events and I’m quite happy to watch others have fun. But something about July, St Pauls, music, drumming, the BBC and sunshine… feels so right. I see it as the BBC at its best. Fun, exciting, inclusive ... with a place for everyone.

It wasn’t always like this. When I arrived in Bristol there was an air of suspicion around our coverage of the carnival. This was surprising to me, because I was pretty familiar with the Birmingham and Leeds carnivals, which were colourful, fun, whole community affairs.

As with all these things it comes down to contacts and relationships. And I have to say that the first move was made by the carnival committee who came to the BBC and asked me as the new editor for a break and ‘fair coverage’ of the event. I said that the BBC could be relied upon for balanced and fair reporting and that I actually thought carnival could and should be brilliant. If there were tough stories to be done, we’d do them, but we weren’t setting out to paint the carnival as some crime-ridden free for all in a no go area of Bristol. So we struck a deal and have a partnership that looks at ways we can work jointly all year round. And it has worked... spectacularly.

The St Pauls Carnival has grown from being a small African and Caribbean fiesta of 39,000 people in 2006; to a major Bristol event of over 100,000 people annually! Due in no small part to the BBC, with local radio, regional television and BBC Outreach all playing significant roles.

I smile when I hear us speaking internally of ‘hard to reach’ groups. And then I think of the St Pauls Carnival and the BBC quite easily touching thousands of its licence fee payers in a fun imaginative way. We ‘tri-cast ‘ the event with the community radio stations BCFM and Ujima Radio who have an amazing ‘one love’ attitude, the strap for their joint breakfast show.

Part of my ritual at the event is to treat myself to some coconut water freshly cut from a young plant; and to follow that up with a Jamaican pattie (even though my folks are from St Kitts!); and then to finish it all off with some raw sugar cane… which feels wonderfully decadent.

I also try to walk the parade route every year and love seeing the range of people enjoying themselves and probably coming into contact with others that they wouldn’t ordinarily think about or meet. I confess to feeling a warm glow inside that I play a small part in making all of this happen.

And then I feel myself swaying and dancing with the samba beats and the reggae music. And the opportunity presents itself to have my picture taken with some gloriously costumed women… and men. And for a moment, I forget, that I am actually working.

Tim Pemberton is Managing Editor, BBC Radio Bristol

• Read also Shana Rose's blog St Pauls Carnival: An unmissable day
• Visit BBC Radio Bristol 

When I got the call to say I had won the attachment I was delighted, but beyond a general idea that I would be helping school kids produce their own reports, I was unsure what was required. I just knew that I wanted to inspire at least one person to pursue a path that they would not have otherwise considered. Part of my brief was to engage with schools in hard-to-reach areas, and we have plenty of those in the North-East and Cumbria. Getting them to enrol in School Report proved to be the hardest part of my job; most headteachers would not even return my emails and calls.

But I did spend a great deal of time visiting schools, talking to the pupils about life as a broadcast journalist, and helping them produce some excellent work. We got a lot of material on air: I ended up filming three School Report pieces that made it onto Look North, BBC Tees and BBC Newcastle ran radio packages and radio car lives, and we had a fantastic television outside broadcast from Marden High School on News Day.

My attachment was a hugely rewarding experience, and I know that I succeeded in my aim of inspiring some of the kids, because both they and their teachers told me. I left with a new-found respect for schoolteachers, and a much greater understanding of the challenges they face every day. I hope that this experience with School Report will not have been my last.

Damian O'Neil is a video journalist for BBC Look North.

• Read Helen Shreeve's blog BBC School Report: "BBC School Report: "We expect the best and that's what they give us".
• Find out more about the project at the BBC News School Report website.
• To find out more about how you can get involved in School Report, please contact laura.macdonald@bbc.co.uk.

Recently, we blogged about Radio 1's Access all Areas - one of many outreach projects mounted by the BBC.

Corporate responsibility, outreach and partnership work are central to the BBC. Many departments across the organisation regularly run outreach projects which bring us into contact with our audiences in a way that broadcasting sometimes can't. Diane Reid gives us an update on recent projects.

BBC Outreach and Corporate Responsibility  has been, well, reaching out abundantly in 2014. Here’s a whistle stop tour of where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to, and some opportunities for you to get involved in our work:

The West

The Ticket Talent Roadshow which promotes creativity and inspires young people to consider a career in the media, will see 1,500 Year nine pupils and 50 BBC volunteers taking part in 10 different Bristol schools in March and April 2014. The project is a unique partnership between BBC Outreach Bristol, the University of the West of England (UWE) and 12 local schools,

News Day 2014

27 March  is BBC News School Report’s annual News Day. Over 1,100 schools are already signed up to take part in the day which will see students aged 11 – 16 around the UK turn their classrooms into newsrooms to report on stories that matter to them, sometimes with support from BBC staff mentors.

Young Composers

Last month, the BBC Proms launched the annual Inspire Young Composers’ Competition for budding composers aged 12 - 18 years old. The judging panel includes professional composers Judith Weir and Fraser Trainer, who will be looking for bright young UK talent. Winners will hear their pieces performed by professional musicians and broadcast on Radio 3, as well as receiving a coveted BBC commission. Part of the wider BBC Proms Inspire scheme, which invites young composers to attend free composition workshops all across the UK, it’s a great opportunity as all young musicians who participate in the scheme are also invited to free workshops during the BBC Proms season.

Theatre

The BBC Performing Arts Fund recently announced over £430,000 of awards to 19 Fellows and 58 community theatre organisations. Funded through revenue from the voting lines of BBC entertainment programmes such as The Voice and Strictly Come Dancing, the charity supports performing arts individuals, community groups and organisations through grants, mentoring and advice.  This year funding has been distributed across the UK with 78% of the recipients based outside of London. From a live performance inside the Scottish parliament to a production using Skype to include performers who are housebound, those funded through the 2013 theatre scheme are as diverse in what they produce as they are in their locations.

Local volunteers

Charities and community organisations looking to run projects with BBC staff are invited to submit innovative applications via The Community Doorway Programme. This new initiative from BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility will see BBC volunteers working with communities local to where they work – primarily the two London boroughs of Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham, Salford and Greater Manchester.

BBC staff will support 14 wide-ranging projects, including an annual awards event recognising Salford’s young people and an arts project in London. The next assessments will take place in early May.

Character Invasion events

Radio 4’s Character Invasion is a celebration of character combining on-air programmes with free public events.  Saturday 29th March is the day and guests can take part in a multitude of events across the country, those at Salford’s MediaCityUK will participate in writing workshops focused on the development of character, gain insights from actors such as Maxine Peake and meetings with the cast of flagship CBBC dramas like Wolfblood. Other events will be taking place at Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham and London.  All events are free but some are ticketed - tickets will become available on 6th March.

Diane Reid is Head of BBC Outreach

• Read more blogs related to BBC Outreach

Elise Cobain talks about her day working with young people from Hammersmith & Fulham as part of BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility’s ‘Programme Maker for a Day’ project. Over the past few years, a number of well-known BBC programmes have taken part, including Holby, Eastenders and Match of the Day.  The collaboration with Radio 1 and 1Xtra sees young people visiting the BBC each month where they learn about the various roles and skills involved in producing the radio networks. 

The one thing I always have to ask myself when I hold classes for young people is, ‘are they as excited as I am to be coming to the BBC?’ As a teenager, the prospect of visiting the Radio 1 and 1Xtra studios and meeting one of their production staff would have had me running about with a huge grin on my face. Not only because of my passion for music radio, but also because I always saw the BBC as the ultimate destination. In my school years it was all about what new tunes Zane Lowe was playing and where Dave Pearce would be DJing next. But in the digital age, young people’s radio consumption habits have changed and the way in which they consume radio content has evolved to a multiplatform experience.

I’m an Assistant Producer for Radio 1 and 1Xtra, currently working with the 1Xtra Breakfast Show. Every weekday morning I’m up at 5.15am, arriving to completely submerge myself in the world of the young urban music fan who’s on their way to work, school or just simply awake between 6-10am.  But it doesn’t matter how much I engage with our listeners on social media, read what they read and watch what they watch, the one thing I’m missing out on is spending time in their social groups. In order to appeal to a younger audience you essentially have to be like them; using their language and having opinions and thoughts that resonate with their lifestyles. This is another reason I’m so excited to meet my group today - they always teach me something new and give a brutally honest and highly valued opinion on what we do as a network.

One of my colleagues Deena, (who is the Outreach Manager within my department), sent an email looking for people who were interested in getting involved in hosting a school visit. This was my opportunity to get stuck in with my target listenership, and hopefully give them a taste of what it’s like to work in radio at the BBC. I knew it was unlikely that the members of my group would be consuming music the way I used to, but I also knew they were studying media and I’ve yet to find a young person who doesn’t like music in one guise or another, so we would definitely have something in common to start with.

Arriving from a centre in West London, I met six Media AS students who were coming along for the ‘Programme Maker for a Day’ scheme - to see how Radio 1 and 1Xtra works and to create their own BBC branded piece of work. Deena, some other colleagues and I had planned a day of activities which included sitting in on a section of the 1Xtra Breakfast Show, meeting some of our presenters, having (nearly) free reign of one of our state-of-the-art studios to practice being a DJ, plus the opportunity to have a go at creating their own two-minute radio package (which you can hear in the audio clip at the bottom).

It seems increasingly common that a young person won’t habitually tune into a traditional radio when they wake up, or use it as their primary source of DJ endorsed new music. The advent of a multiplatform and largely diversifying radio, music and live events market, means that there’s a wealth of brands vying for 16-25 year olds’ attention.  So I saw my job for the day not only to assist them using their English /Media skills in a mock professional environment but also to whet their appetite for the art of music radio and to showcase some of the great content that Radio 1 and 1Xtra create.

Many of my group had seen radio studios in the movies so initially they didn’t seem to be too bothered by entering one of the most advanced radio studios in the world, which we’re very lucky to have at London’s New Broadcasting House. But after inviting them to have a go at being presenters and producers they were soon delving into the delights of the 8^th floor; practising using the microphones, playing songs out of digitized music systems and framing each other with our studio camera set-up. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a tech-savvy school student who has never used a VCS control pad or our touch-screen camera control system, can figure it out. The next generation of radio producers and operations staff already have an impressive aptitude to handle broadcast equipment.

The afternoon focussed on creating a short radio package designed to appeal to the 16-24 year old 1Xtra audience, on a topic of their choice. I gave the group 10 minutes to use whatever resources they could get their hands on to come up with some ideas we could look at. My first response as the host was to grab a wad of paper, plenty of post-it notes and a sea of pens and pass them out to my visitors so they could get writing. The surprise ingredient was actually the daily papers. They rummaged through the pages of red tops and broadsheets alike to find stories and thought about what they’d been talking about with friends at school that week, and we ended up with an impressive spread of opinion lead features and musically driven informative extracts for our radio package. I really couldn’t have asked for a more interested and motivated group of students. Having started the day with little appreciation of the station and no regular radio habits we had worked together to create an interesting and topical package looking at the Grammy Awards Ceremony and the upcoming Oscars. You can hear it in the clip below.

Saving the best till last I handed over the final part of the day to my college and Head of Visualisation for Radio 1 and 1Xtra, Joe Harland. Having left him with the vague brief: “Can you give the group a bit of an insight into the idea of visualised radio and answer any questions they may have,” I returned to find my team truly inspired and chatting vigorously about the idea of visualised radio, what they’ve missed from the Radio 1 and 1Xtra YouTube channel and brimming with ideas for things they might like to do in the future, a fantastic result.

I would have relished the chance to participate in something like this when I was a student, not only to add to my CV but to have a fun and insightful day out of my A-level timetable. For me, now, the opportunity to meet some of our younger audience members who are so ambitious and creative is inspirational, especially as I’m catering for that target audience. For any BBC colleagues reading this I really couldn’t recommend getting involved in ‘Programme Maker for a Day’ enough. Every comment and suggestion from our young visitors has been taken on-board and challenges us to do the next big thing here at Radio 1 and 1Xtra.

Elise Cobain is an Assistant Producer for Radio 1 and 1Xtra

• Programme Maker for a Day is a project from BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility, the department that brings the BBC closer to its audiences through face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.
• Watch behind the scenes clips from a BBC Outreach Programme Maker for a Day workshop matching young people with the Asian Network.

The 2014 500 Words short storywriting competition is underway. The closing date for entries is Wednesday 26 February 2014. To help inspire aspiring writers, BBC Radio 2 staged a live webcast masterclass. Jon Jacob went along and took some notes. 

I'm sat at the back of the picture. Right at the back. Out of shot. Experience informs me that there's little point in trying to compete with row upon row of uniformly clad schoolchildren channelling never-ending reserves of excitement through their hands and vocal chords. And anyway, the live 500 Words webcast wasn't for me anyway. I wasn't the target audience.

This didn't stop me from taking copious notes during the half-hour masterclass staged in the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House. For nearly twelve months I've bemoaned the fact that I - along with a great many other aspiring novelists - find short story writing very nearly impossible. A 750 word blog post is relatively straightforward to rattle off, in part because aside from the whimsy, a blog post is to a large extent based on fact. Short stories are in comparison fraught with difficulty. Fiction is an impossible challenge to someone whose natural home is reporting and reflecting back.

These and other points were covered by Frank Cottrell Boyce, a judge on Radio 2 500 Words short storywriting competition and whose appearance during the live webcast helped whip the assembled audience into a bit of a frenzy. Small arms stretched in seats raising eager young faces a few extra inches higher, in an attempt to get a view of the morning's star turn. Whoops of delight, raucous applause and ear-splitting cheers of appreciation ensued. We might picture the audience in everything we do, but opportunities for BBC staff to come this close to the 'audience' are comparatively rare.

Little wonder then, the combination of infectious enthusiasm and naive excitement and in a flash I was transported from my usual business-like characteristic cynicism to an altogether more idyllic and rose-tinted view of my own childhood. Was it a realisation of the number of years which had passed in between which prompted a tear to spring from my eye? Or, the irrefutable truth that if children are suitably engaged with the idea of something, the atmosphere can be electrifying.

Or maybe it was the realisation than in comparison to the noisy train carriage of children who had made the work-related telephone conversation I tried to have on my journey into central London, this group of children were in comparison the most adorable things in the world, second only to my cats Cromarty and Faeroe. Yes, it must have been that.

My notes aren't extensive. They didn't need to be. Frank Cottrell Boyce's 'hastily written' short story read out to all of us about a boy who wakes up one morning and discovers he's grown into an old man overnight epitomised the goal: imaginative, quirky, original and gripping writing and all of it condensed into 500 words

Dive in, don't worry about the end and have fun, were his words of advice. And they stuck. So too the line about take something you're familiar with and make it your own. Later that night I completed a first attempt at the tale of a man whose goes on a trip to the pit of his stomach. And no, you can't read it. Not yet.

Jon Jacob is Digital Editor, About the BBC website and blog

• Frank Cottrell Boyce's masterclass webcast is available on the 500 Words website
• The closing date for entries for the 2014 500 Words competition is Wednesday 26 February 2014. 
• More information, including tips and guidance can be found on the 500 Words website.

• The Rossini workshops were one of many outreach events staged by the BBC's performing groups.
• The BBC Singers next Come and Sing event is on 19 March at Maida Vale Studios. 
• Read more about the BBC's commitment to outreach work on our dedicated website.