A new educational resource headed by Melbourne journalists at the Herald Sun is bringing simplified news stories to Victorian classrooms.
Kids News will be pilot trialled in 2017, as the website allows teachers to explain two stories from the daily news cycle each school day.
Kids News editor Karina Grift said the site came about due to a reported need among primary teachers for a sale online resource that explained the news in an age-appropriate way.
She said an example of this was the recent Melbourne mall deaths, which would have been covered on the site had it occurred during the school term.
“What happened in Melbourne, we wouldn’t be able to ignore it,” Ms Grift said.
“It’s looking at what positive things have come out of it, people helping victims…taking the sensationalist element out of it.”
She said the organisation was developing a production guide offered free to schools on how to get the most out of the site with workshopping around literacy, media, enquiry and numeracy activities.
“We developed Kids News and in 2017 we will publish two stories a day every school day with photos, video, voice recording and three teacher-written classroom activities,” she said.
“The response has been fantastic and as of mid December last year we had about 1400 teachers subscribed for the 2017 school year.”
Ms Grift estimated up to 30,000 students had accessed the site, after it launched its free trial mid last year.
She said the project remains free of charge in 2017, with an analysis of its success to follow and potential to expand.
The website can be found at kidsnews.com.au
