Six Brauer students from year 9 and year 11 wrote news reports on Australian events and issues for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) regular School Report program broadcast on the BBC’s local radio network.

Topics covered by the students in their three-minute segment for the BBC included the federal Labor leadership challenge, the Prime Minister’s apology for the forced adoption of children and the start of the AFL season.

Students worked with lecturers from Deakin University’s journalism degree course to prepare their news report.

Deakin University journalism lecturer Paul Bethel said the BBC’s School Report usually featured reports from schools in the United Kingdom and he believed the Brauer students were the first from an Australian school to have made a contribution.

Mr Bethel said students could submit reports about anything that interested them to the program.

The radio bulletin for the School Report followed a video that Brauer students had prepared earlier for the BBC.

The video, which was also put together with the help of Deakin University, broadcast news about Warrnambool and can be seen on the BBC’s website.

The video, which runs one minute 50 seconds, promotes Warrnambool’s attractions such as the beaches, its “pretend Big Ben” (the T&G clocktower at the corner of Lava and Liebig streets), and also had footage of school sports.

Mr Bethel said the video project gave students the opportunity to use the platform of video and digital technology to reach a large international audience with their stories.