WHEN you read the newspaper do you ever stop to consider how much effort goes into producing each page? Would you survive if suddenly faced with working as a top reporter? No?

Well, this was the task facing year nine students in Wolsingham School and Community College when the main upper school hall was transformed into a newspaper office for the morning.

The unusual project, the first of its kind at the school, was the idea of newly-appointed head of English, Mr Lister.

We asked Mr Lister why he chose to try out this activity at our school.

He said: "The students in year nine are currently undergoing a six-week module of media studies and it shows what happens in the real world of media and what pressure the reporters are under every day in a newspaper office.

"The students learn a lot about working together. I'm only hoping the computers work."

The project worked very simply: take 150 students, seven English teachers, six programmed computers and printers, one morning, and you have the perfect recipe for high levels of learning and absolute chaos.

First, the students were separated into 14 groups. Twelve of the groups were located in the hall, each assigned a group leader and presented with a challenge.

The challenge was to produce the first three pages of a newspaper by the 12:25pm deadline, using the stories that would be randomly printed off from a special computer programme, designed by Mr. Lister, at various time intervals right up to the deadline.

However, there were also additional presentations, provided by the remaining groups.

One of these was the radio group, who had a deadline every half hour to prepare, record, and present a short news bulletin, based on the information they received from their computer.

Each bulletin was then played to the reporters, who made frantic notes to include the stories in their newspaper.

Jenna Connelly talked to us about her role in the radio group.

She said: "I've been collecting bulletins all morning and helping record the news programmes. Before we started I thought it might be a bit boring, but once I got into it, I found it very interesting."

The final way the teams gained information was through Press conferences prepared by another group with the information from their computer.

These occurred several times during the morning, with additional interviews with the Prime Minister, or Joe Turnbull as he is known to his friends!

We interviewed Joe about how his morning had gone.

He told us: "I've really enjoyed the morning. I realise what Tony Blair has to put up with now."

The hall had never been so busy, with enthusiastic students all so dedicated to finishing on time. We interviewed Bonnie Choi, one of the group leaders, who said: "There is a tremendous amount of responsibility involved. I'm the one that has to make sure we are finished by the deadline. It's going to be tough, but I think we'll make it."

One of the reporters, Lucy Armstrong, told us: "I've had a wonderful time so far. It's really hard work and it took us a while to get used to the pace of the computer, but hopefully we'll make the deadline".

Just before the deadline, we escaped the hive of activity, unable to get anymore interviews because of the choruses of "I can't talk now, we've got to finish on time!" coming from every table.

Instead, we talked to the school's headteacher, Mrs O'Reilly, and asked her if she thought the activity would be more beneficial to the students than ordinary lessons.

She said: "Yes, absolutely guaranteed, because they are using a style of group work unfamiliar to them.

"Children learn a lot more from this activity, and it certainly looks as if they are enjoying it. We hope to run a similar project soon with year seven, but I think there would be problems if we did it too often."

The countdown had begun and the final radio broadcast was a mere memory with only ten minutes to go. Large sheets of paper were distributed and the land speed record with a glue stick was broken several times. Then, the moment of truth.

We are certain there were several post deadline adjustments which went unnoticed. Never has so much relief been seen on so many faces. It was now down to the English staff, who decided that the group led by Bonnie Choi were overall winners.

It was a worthwhile, ground breaking day for Wolsingham and its students, with a new found enthusiasm for media studies and a great sense of achievement.

Now, every time they see a newspaper, they will remember that chaotic morning and all they learned from it