Good news for the community
Cookham: Sales of the ‘Trinity Times’ will go to charity
Two budding young journalists from a Cookham primary school are delivering good news in their community with their new newspaper.
Holy Trinity Primary School pupils, Ben Brittain and Rafferty King, released their first edition of the ‘Trinity Times’ this week, with all sales going to charity.
The Year 6 pupils decided to produce a school newspaper for children as they felt the news aired on television and covered in newspapers was ‘depressing’ and wanted to ‘focus on positive news to make people feel better’.
Ben and Rafferty said they learned a lot during the process, adding: “We spent a lot of time walking around the community asking people their views. It encouraged us to do research into local events and share things going on.
“We enjoy doing charitable work, we thought it would be fun and it would provide us with some good learning opportunities and skills for the future.”
Ben and Rafferty included an advert for Cookham-based printing company Print 'n' Projects, which printed their newspaper for free, and a second advert for the Little Bookshop after the owner gave them £10 towards the newspaper production.
Holy Trinity headteacher Anna Smith said: “This is an incredibly kind gesture and a real show of community spirit – a good news story all around.”
The boys said they learned many skills during the process, adding: “We enjoyed doing research and we really enjoyed making a puzzle page knowing that someone is going to win a prize. We also enjoyed making an invoice for the Little Bookshop. We now have signatures.”
Each edition costs 50p and all proceeds will support a charity linked to a published article from that month’s edition.
The ‘Nature Corner’ section of this month’s edition covers the flooding in January titled: ‘Cookham Battles Floods: When the Thames Swells, Community Prevails’ which focuses on how wildlife, particularly birds, were affected and offers suggestions on how readers can help.
Around 120 copies of the paper have been printed and the boys hope to raise £60 for the RSPB this month.
Ben and Rafferty have plenty of ideas for future editions including book reviews, ‘a day in the life’ of their Year 6 teacher, a ‘how to’ guide on making a birdfeeder and a story on a fundraiser for their former classmate to buy a new wheelchair.
Anna described the first edition as ‘incredibly well written and professional in its appearance’ and said: “The boys have been selling it after school on the playground and will continue to set up a stall each day until they sell out.”