YOUNG newshounds from a Swindon secondary school have received recognition for their newspaper.

The pupils from Common-weal School in Old Town, who were given some valuable tips from Advertiser editor Mark Waldron as part of the project, will now travel to London to collect the award.

The Year 9 pupils have been commended for the newspaper they created as part of the Times Education Supple-ment's Newsday competition.

Before getting started on their newspaper they received a visit from Mr Waldron who passed on some of the secrets of the Adver's success.

The youngsters also spent a day in the Adver newsroom and went out with reporters.

Julia Rose, head of ICT at Commonweal, supervised the children on the project.

She said: "The visit from the editor taught them that making a newspaper is not quite as simple as they may have thought it was.

"It involves putting in a lot of work and doing a lot of research before you start."

The youngsters learned all about techniques used by reporters to get stories, newspaper layout and design.

They then had just one day to put the newspaper together.

Their front page was a story about malaria and inside were news, entertainment and sports stories.

These included stories that the budding reporters picked up while out with Adver reporters including an interview with the Duchess of Gloucester.

Ms Rose said: "It was quite fraught on the day. But the students really loved it and thought it was a fantastic experience.

"In fact they enjoyed it so much that when I asked them if they would like to do it again next year they said yes.

"So we've decided to enter again next year and to aim to do even better."

Ms Rose and the two editors of the newspaper will now be attending a presentation at the Palace of Westminster on Monday June 6 to pick up their commendation award.

Diana Milne