Westminster schoolchildren have put the finishing touches to their very own school newspaper as part of a media centre experience run by The Press Association.

Fourteen students aged 14 to 19 from Westminster City School took up the challenge to produce a newspaper from start to finish in six weeks.

They were set a number of tough deadlines to meet and in that time had to research, write and design their own material.

Their final two days were spent in PA’s state-of-the-art training centre, which is used to train many of the UK’s top journalists.

They put together an eight-page newspaper under the supervision of Tony Johnston, head of PA Training. Two thousand copies of the full colour paper were then printed and sent to the school.

The Press Association worked in partnership with Westminster City Council, through its education and enterprise departments in order to promote the scheme to schools.

Charlie Hawken, (16), one of the students who took part, said: “I can’t believe we were able to produce a product like this in such a small amount of time. We had never done anything like this before and I noticed how much I had to communicate with people to make it work.

“We wrote about gun and knife crime among young people, homophobic bullying in schools, album reviews and new internet sites. This experience has been really important because each student has the chance to comment on a subject they feel strongly about.”

Tony said the course also developed other disciplines: “The students need to display real organisational and leadership skills in order to hit our deadlines. The pupils from Westminster City School really faced up to this challenge and passed with flying colours.”