Celebrating winning the Panasonic KWN 2013 Awards for "Best Picture and Sound" and the "UK Grand Prix" for Lacey's Story, a short documentary about Teenage Cancer.

The following is a press release written by Chloe Craig giving a summary of the KWN experience.

Kid Witness News is a Global Competition run by Panasonic. KWN is designed to create an opportunity for school pupils around the world to create a short five-minute film about a topic under the themes of either communication or ecology.

Knox Academy has taken part in KWN for three years now. This year eight pupils in third year; Olivia Christie, Chloe Craig, Harriet Lomholt-Welch, Isla Macdonald, Charlotte Riddell, Ben Scott, Charlotte Smith and Megan Sproul, took part in the competition. We chose the theme of communication and decided to focus the documentary on teenage cancer.

The team wanted a challenge. We wanted a subject that we all felt strongly and passionately about that affected today’s society. Teenage Cancer is an issue that we felt we could relate to as it affects people in our age group. We know what its like to be a teenager, so we felt that we understood what it would be like to have that taken away from you.

The experience has taught us so much. It has brought everyone closer together by working  with each other for the competition. We have realised the importance of compromising, as we didn't always agree on everything.  No arguments occurred as such but discussions did often become more like debates. We were faced with a short time scale and had to learn quickly how to plan and organise our time. We learned the basics of the technical side behind film production including angles of the camera and editing. Our skills developed and roles within in the team were established. From learning about the camera and how it is used to portray different angles, we all subconsciously started to realise why the directors of cinematic film had used those particular shots.

“KWN has brought us closer as friends and has taught us many valuable lessons.
All our hard work on the film has definitely been worth it.” O.C.

"KWN has helped me gain many skills that I never thought I would be able to achieve, I'm glad that I was a part of this amazing journey and it wouldn't have been the same without my excellent team mates." I.M.

After submitting our film in February and finding out the Awards Ceremony was on Thursday 2 May we decided to relax. The date started drawing closer and we had to plan how we would get down to the ceremony in Redditch. We had to plan which method of transport we were going to use. After some research we decided that we would travel to Redditch in two cars on the Thursday, stay in accommodation overnight and drive back the Friday. This was possible with the assistance of East Lothian Educational Trust.

The journey to Redditch began at Knox Academy at 3 am on Thursday, an early start for everyone. It was a long drive, even with the few stops we had, but we got there eventually.

An opportunity is being presented to S3 pupils to be prefects whilst the seniors are away on Study Leave.

If you are interested you should send Mrs Ingham a letter (in writing, as a video or, as a voice recording) saying why you think you would be a good candidate for the job.

You need to think about:

• whether you are willing to give up some Interval and Lunchtimes to do duties;
• whether you would come to any evening events to guide parents, check lists of attendees etc;
• whether you would be willing to challenge people who might not be behaving in a way that we would expect Knox Academy pupils to behave either in school, or in Haddington.

“Letters” need to be with Mrs Ingham (through the School Office) by 9 am on Thursday 9 May.

If there are a lot of people applying, we might need to interview, but hopefully we will be able to select 20 prefects from your letters of application.

Thank you,
Mrs Ingham

Minutes of the meeting of the Parent School Partnership, held on Wednesday 6 February 2013, approved at the meeting on 24 April 2013 are now available to view.

Further details of PSP activities and previous minutes can be accessed on this website: School Info > Parent School Partnership.

The Parent School Partnership website can be accessed here.

The Jericho Cafe reopens on Saturday 20 April 2013... further details below.