Budding journalists and student leaders in Junior School

A group of budding journalists in Junior School created the Dulwich Dudes Magazine last year. Under the supervision of their teacher, Mr Jett Brunet (EdTech and Innovation Coach in Junior School), they dedicated time and energy to lead this project independently, from naming the magazine to creating its content and its design. 

Let Ella Z, one of the founders, share how this adventure started…

Ella Z

"The origin of our Junior School Dulwich Dudes Magazine is clear and simple. Two words: '5JB' + 'Assembly'.

It started last year, when our class was working on preparing our assembly. After all the acts and lines were confirmed, Mr Brunet suggested we make an extra magazine to support our assembly. And so we did, but it was tough. The naming of the magazine, cover design, actual articles, interesting ads, printing, and pictures...

We learnt and demonstrated a lot of Dulwich Values since not everybody has the same opinion. We especially built our resilience and learnt to become more of a team. The hardest part was to get all the articles from all the different writers in our class. Everybody had to have self-discipline and manage their time to get their articles finished. I remember when Martin and I stayed together at lunchtime to do the finishing touches. We even had to move the publishing time to later than our original date since we didn’t have enough articles, but in the end, the magazine was ready to share with Junior School on the day of our Assembly.  Overall, none of us let down the group by not being ready on time.

If I had to use one word to summarise this whole experience, it would be:  unforgettable. I learnt much from that experience. Thank you 5JB for this experience!"

Since then, they have extended their skills to launching the Dulwich Dudes Podcast.

Olivia L and Heloise D will now enthusiastically tell us what inspired them to create a podcast and how the made it while Martin D will reflect on their new challenge.

Olivia L

"Hopefully, you have heard about the Dulwich Dudes Podcast! I wanted to tell you guys what inspired us to make podcasts. Mr Brunet, one of our College’s EdTech and Innovation Coaches, came up with the idea of making the Dulwich Dudes Podcast because he thought that we could make something special and unique for DCB students to listen to while at school and outside of school. We happily agreed right away.

Then, we came up with the idea of the Dulwich Dudes Podcast for the name because we thought it was a very cool name, and it was based on the Dulwich Dudes Magazine name. The Dulwich Dudes Magazine team is an ECA where Junior School students publish magazines for everyone to read. We wanted to give it a try because it would be a new experience for us, and we thought it would be a fun thing to try. It would also be a good opportunity for us to experience how a podcast is made and how it is recorded, and the steps of making it. Hopefully, we get to continue making it in Senior School! It has been an amazing experience! "

Heloise D

"Would you like to know how we record our podcast and the different steps we take to make it? 

So firstly, we have to plan what our podcast is going to be about, and what our lines are going to be. One fun thing is that we have to vote for what our topic is going to be!

Secondly, we practice once or twice to know what we are supposed to say and try not to make any mistakes. We also know that mistakes help us to learn, so we don’t worry too much about it, and try to sound a bit more natural.

Thirdly, we record the introduction together, and finally, we start to record our lines separately to improve the sound quality. This is because since we are four people, so we have to sit in a semicircle and the sound won’t be as clear as the person sitting in the middle of the semicircle when we use the recorder’s microphone.

After we finish the recording, Mr Brunet will cut out any bits that are wrong or the parts that we want to be repeated again. It’s a great experience, hope you can try it one day, too!"

Martin D

" Ella, Mr Brunet and I, leaders of the Dulwich Dudes Magazine and Podcast, will say all our effort paid off. This year was an incredible year for me, even though there was COVID-19. I say that because I finally can do something that I want to, without being forced to do it. Joining the Magazine team was the greatest moment of the year. It gave me something to be proud of, something I could finally be grateful for. 

Our team is fantastic! They are all very serious and hard-working and they try everything to help us to succeed. When 5JB first published the Magazine, I was very nervous that other students would laugh at us, but my teacher Mr Brunet would keep on encouraging me to try over, over and over again until I would succeed. During these Magazine days, I learned great leadership skills to lead the Magazine team to success.   

So, to conclude, I believe that I would do something related to podcasting in Senior School, and I encourage more people to continue doing this fantastic project, or maybe even make a Dulwich Dudes Channel. Most importantly, hopefully, do something that no one has ever done before. "

But our energetic and dedicated leaders recently gave themselves the mission to be the first students to lead a teacher training session during Tech Bytes, our weekly EdTech and Innovation workshops for teachers. They put together a presentation and asked to share it on Wednesday during the Senior School M.I.T ECA session to gather feedback from older students.

Senior School M.I.T. students gave lots of useful constructive criticism on their presentation and were very impressed with the podcast team’s confidence and drive to improve. Our young team will now use the feedback they have received to improve their teacher training presentation.

Mr Brunet concludes that “this is an outstanding example of our Dulwich Values of Confidence, Resilience, Responsibility and Open-Mindedness. Ella Z, Heloise D, Olivia L and Martin D have proven themselves to be exceptional student leaders. We hope that what they have done so far in Term 1 will inspire more students to become change agents for Junior School and in the future. We are so proud of you!”