More than 50 journalism students are set to team up to cover tomorrow night’s local elections across two cities.

Editors at News Associates offices in Wimbledon and Manchester have “torn up their timetable of lessons” allowing more than 50 trainees to work through the night reporting results from 11 London boroughs and ten counts across Greater Manchester.

Teams of trainees from the NA’s London office have been accredited to cover election counts in Croydon, Sutton, Richmond, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth, Lambeth, Merton, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hillingdon.

Their counterparts at NA’s Manchester school will be reporting from counts at Salford, Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Trafford, Tameside, Rochdale, Oldham, Stockport and Manchester.

Other students will be based at of both News Associates’ offices running live blogs on their house-run publications SWLondoner and Mancunian Matters, with an e-edition of SWLondoner also going live at 11am on Friday.

News Associates managing editor James Toney said: “May 3 will be a massive night of political news and our trainees will be front and centre covering every thrilling moment.

“With more than 30 trainees from London and around 20 from Manchester plus a dozen staff working through the night and all Friday morning, we will have two of the heaviest staffed newsrooms anywhere in the country covering this story.

“Our journalists will be providing live coverage, reaction and analysis throughout the night. It should be a great experience for all our trainees covering some huge political stories.

“We will be competing with the national media on this story and I am confident our coverage will be as quick, as accurate and as comprehensive as anyone else.

“When trainees finish our courses, we make sure they are newsroom ready. This is another example of how we tear-up timetables to allow our trainees to cover the big stories.”