Case study | The Ruth Gorse Academy

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SECONDARY SCHOOL
Leeds
ruthgorse.leeds.sch.uk

What the teacher says...

"I love the Burnet News Club because it has been a brilliant opportunity for our students to form opinions that are well-informed and researched. They're so excited to find out new things! At first, it was really difficult to get them listening to each other’s opinions, but they’ve become really good at doing that now and this is because of the work we’ve been doing in the club.”

HARRIET BAKER
Burnet News Club Teacher

Background

The Ruth Gorse Academy has run the Burnet News Club since 2018. It is one of nine participating schools within the GORSE Academies Trust. The club is run as an extra-curricular activity and the school has reported:

  • significant positive impact on participating students
  • significant increase in conversations about current affairs
  • significant increase in knowledge about the news

The Economist Educational Foundation has also delivered training on embedding news literacy in the classroom to Burnet News Club teachers from across the Trust.

THOUGHT LEADER | ISSUE 3 | 2018-2019

Each half term, we choose one Burnet News Club Thought Leader. This is a school whose Club contributed really well to the online discussions. They might have written interesting Final pieces, won lots of skills stars or written posts and comments that got other members thinking. The Ruth Gorse Academy was our Thought Leader for the topic on The Rise of Violent Crime. They were brilliant at engaging in discussions and asked pertinent questions to develop their conversations (and thinking) further.

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