We have been visited by Richard Twyman, an actor from the National Theatre. He came to work with the students who are in an exciting play being performed at school tonight.

What was it like working with Richard Twyman, why is he so famous?

It was good, he gave new techniques to help us and shared some new warm-ups to help us prepare for our performance of 'Blackout'.

He won three Olivier awards for art directing

What's the play about?

About a young lad who gets a bit lost after he grandad dies and gets bullied and takes it out on those around him.

What do you feel about performing at the Lyceum in Edinburgh?
Excited, really excited - brilliant opportunity

What about performing at the National in London if you win the competition?
That would be amazing!

Are you wearing the costumes from the play?
No, these are for the monologues. The play is called 'Blackout' so we're in all black clothes

This is Morgan and Jenny, reporting for BBC School Report

Students from Bedlington High School have interview a teacher awarded for a daring mountain rescue, their very own Mr Close-Ash.

Are you ever stuck for an idea for presents? A group of pupils at our school have come up with an idea. The school has been encouraging enterprise to get pupils to think about life and work outside of school.

A group of 36 pupils were given £500 to produce soap.

The groups bought soap mix, scents and colours and then designed and made the soaps - putting them on sticks like kebabs for display!

The pupils then sold them aiming to payback the money and make a little more!

"We really enjoyed the challenge and working in our groups."

This is Morgan, 13, reporting for BBC School Report

Hi, this is Liam, I was involved in the BBC filming of the school report. What a busy day!

9:00- We met up in axis and planned our production not knowing how long it was going to take to film
10:00- This was the fun part we now started to film
11:30- The first part of our video was now complete and we could start to film the next
12:30- Ruben our camera man was taking many photos of us from different angles and experimenting from all ways trying to make it interesting
13:15- Dr Bunce and I set of with Ruben and Helen (a national reporter)
13:25- At my house we filmed the scene with me holding the Nintendo ds and playing, with my mum telling me to get off it.
14:05- This took many takes and now we were pushing for time
14:10- Filming began again with my mum's interview which took about 20-30 minutes to get right!
14:40- With Helens help we began to make the voice over script which did not take long
14:50- The recording started and took around about half an hour to complete
15:20- Recording were complete and then end product was satisfying
15:25- We returned to school in time before the end of school

We were really pleased with the finish film when it was shown on BBC Look North. Dr. Bunce was amazed how many people watched it - "I've been contacted by an old friend that I haven't seen in years, who saw me on the TV".

Thanks to Reuben and Helen who made it a special day.

This is Liam, reporting for BBC School Report again!

During the course of Knowledge Transfer Partnership project, we have developed new ways of learning. The project has changed our views on what learning is and how you learn. It has gathered lots of interest; not just inside school, but around the country and internationally as well!

At the beginning of the year, we had some Dutch visitors come to the school to see the project. They were also interested in how we learn, here in Northumberland. Student Researchers (KTP student participants) took 2-3 groups of the visitors to; tour them around the school, be interviewed about our work in KTP and attend a meeting with the visitors and teachers. At the end of the day, the visitors left delighted with their knowledge of the project; and hoping to incorporate it into their own teaching methods. During the meeting, they were very intrigued to find that, students were asking the questions and refining them, instead of the traditional method of teachers asking the questions. They were fascinated at how we use cross curricular in English and other subjects. This was because we used ICT to help us with ongoing projects such as power point presentations and to help us plot a graph in maths and also to create a timeline in science about famous scientists.

Just last week a similar visit occurred. This time our visitors were Norwegian!
The Norwegian visitors where here to see how our school was ran. The main reason they came was to focus on ICT and and the KTP project. They wanted to see how differently we learned here in Northumberland, England.

During the course of their visit they had a tour around the school by 4 students from Bedlingtonshire community high school. They got to sit in the back of a number of lessons and observed the way that the lessons went.

Also, four year nine girls did a presentation to them explaining the KTP project and how it was functioning.

The visit was very successful and it was also a great way to ask things about schools in Norway and the difference between us and them .

Everyone involved enjoyed the day and thought it went great !

Today we interviewed Danny and Connor there design was the winner of the water bottle design ran by 7FM. The whole class chose this design because they thought that it was a good choice because they have really put some effort in to it.

We caught up with Danny and Connor and interviewed them. Here are just a few questions that we asked them.
1. How did you come up with the design?
They were just doodling and came up with the idea.hey
2. How did you feel when you found out that your design had won?
Connor was very happy and surprised and Danny was shocked because they were just doodling.
3. How long did it take you to do design it?
It only took them 1hour and 10 minuets.
4. Why did you choose that design?
They like the idea also they spent most of there time on the face.
5. Why did you go with that design?
They thought the colours that they were using suited the bottle design.

Then we interviewed Mrs Mather she was the one who organised it all.
These are the questions that we asked her.
1. How did you get the idea to do the water bottle design?
Because the school was thinking about getting water bottles but then we had an offer to design there own logo.
2. How did you pick the winning bottle design?
The class had a discussion to pick what one that they liked and then hey picked the winning design all the class really liked it.
3. What are you going to do with the water bottle money that you have raised?
The water that we raise will be send to a charity called unicef and that company is all about raising money for people who need clean water and then it will be sent to Africa.
We think it was a good idea because it is good to drink more water, but also creative as well. This is Amber, 12 and Daniel, 11, reporting for School Report.

We saw the 'change 4 life' advert about video games - 'risk an early death just do nothing.' We knew that our school was trialing using video games in PE , so we thought we'd better investigate.

How have PE lessons changed
We started by looking at how PE lessons had changed. We interviewed my grandma, who was at this school in the late 1950's

How often did you have PE lessons?
"we had PE lessons twice a week"

What did you used to do in your PE lessons?
"we used to play netball, hockey we had climbing frames. We sometimes went swimming towards the end of my time there. We went on long walks from West Sleekburn to Cambois and back again. That was about two miles to get there and two miles back. we also had the usual sports day you know the egg and spoon race and so on"

Chinese dancing
Today the school has Chinese dancing going on. Apple is a professional who came all the way from Newcastle just to teach us.

Do you think Chinese dancing is a good form of fitness?
"oh yes definitely"

Where did you come from and is dancing a sport in your schools?
"I originally came from Beijing and dancing is a huge part of the PE in the schools"

Were you invited or did you choose to come to our school?
"yes I made the choice"

Video games in schools
So back to the video games we have asked Year 9 student, Lauren to test out the Nintendo Wii fit. Lauren has difficultly in walking and the school introduced the WiiFit to help develop her balance.

Do you think that by using the Wii more people will keep themselves fit?
"yes they would keep themselves fit"

Why did you use Wii fit?
"because I'd never used it before and me and my friends thought it would be fun"

Did you have fun?
" I enjoyed it yes"

Did it help you with your balance?
"yes it helped me with my balance"

The school has a full PE programme and the video games are a new way of exercising. At first, I thought video games would be bad for you, but now after seeing
that it can help you in so many ways, it doesnt seem so bad after all!

Victoria, 12 reporting for the BBC school report.

If you see children drinking alcohol - is it a problem? We responded to a recent survey about the children in the UK being among the biggest drinkers in Europe.

Long term effects of drinking alcohol can be:

• Certain types of cancer


• Memory loss, brain damage & dementia


• Increased risk of heart disease and stroke


• Liver disease such as cirrhosis and liver cancer


• Stomach ulcers

• Anxiety.


• Sexual difficulties such as impotence.


• Accident and injuries


• Slowed breathing and heartbeat.


• Suffocation through choking on your own vomit.


• Potentially fatal poisoning.

Do you know anyone between 9 and 15 who drink?
Yes, at parties and on the streets

At the parties are their parents present and do they allow them to drink?
Yes, the parents are there, but the parents don't know they are drinking.

Do you think this encourages them to drink on the streets?
Yes, because it makes them feel big

When you see them drinking on the street, what is on your mind?
They are jumping around and out of control, so you can feel scared.

Does this make you want to drink?
No.

Do you think there is a problem with underage drinking?
Yes, because there's too many people drinking.

So, if the UK has a problem with underage drinking what do you think we should do about it?

Elisha, 12 and James, 11 Reporting for the BBC school report!

A teacher at our school recently won a national award. Miss Reid was given the Business Leader of Tomorrow award to recognise her work in our school. I travelled down to London with her and watched while all of the work that we have done in the school recognised as Graham Spittle gives her the award.

She was nominated by Mr Richard Parker Smith for her leadership skills.

"We have been involved in the KTP Project and think that Miss Reid truly deserved the award for her hard work and determination. Miss Reid is a fantastic Project Leader - she gives each individual a lot of support as well as doing all of the work necessary for the change in Teaching and Learning."

KTP stands for Knowledge Transfer Partnership. It's an organisation that usually puts further education places with businesses that have a part which isn't working properly. However, in this case, it's in a school and we are aiming to change the way of teaching and learning for the benefit of everyone within the school.

We interviewed Miss Reid to find out more about KTP and her award. Click below to watch the video.

Miss Reid interview.wmv

We also interviewed 2 teachers that are involved in the KTP Project:

Interview with Miss Bonner

From a personal perspective, I think that the school has changed quite a lot. There's a lot of enquiry-based learning in lessons. It's making the pupils much more independent so they can be successful learners. Not only at school, but afterwards too. It's not only improved my teaching but also the learning of the pupils that I teach.

Interview with Mr Welsh

I think the KTP Project is extremely valuable because it gives students to opportunity to develop skills they will need to use in later life. Lessons concentrate on not only the topics that they need to learn but also the skills and attributes that they will need throughout their life. It has had a great impact on student researchers as it allows them to become far more independent learners. Now, you can give a student a topic title and then they will go off and find out more than they needed to know in the first place. My lessons have changed drastically. I can now give the student the opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. My involvement in the KTP has shown me that it's good to give students the responsibility and let them find knowledge for themselves.

This is Dan, in Bedlington with the weather report for today.

Today at 9 am, it was light rain and the temperature was 9 celcius. This will continue throught the day.

However, at 11 am it looked like this:

Bright with puddles everywhere. However, we predict that it's going to rain again.

At 12 noon, it is still forcast for light rain.

Continuing past 3 pm, but at 6 pm, fortunately, the sun will be out without the showers.

This is Dan, reporting for BBC School Report at Bedlington High School.

School report day has arrived. We have a dedicated news team who are ready to go. Updates will follow throughout Thursday 26th March 2009.