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Student Sit-In - The Tutor's View
James Morrison is course leader of the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) newspaper journalism course at City College Brighton.
The college also runs an NCTJ magazine journalism course, which also has a work experience arrangement with the 24 Hour Museum. James is the former Arts and Media correspondent of the Independent on Sunday.
"The NCTJ magazine journalism students who spent a week 'running' the 24-Hour Museum emerged from the experience, almost without exception, tired but satisfied. Indeed, many emerged commenting that they would be happy to continue working there indefinitely - if only there was an opportunity of paid employment."
"Unlike many of the individual placements the students embarked on during their second week of work experience, the 24-Museum set-up appears to have fostered a spirit of team-work and camaraderie which proved both encouraging and fulfilling."
"Rather than being left to sit in a corner and open the post (as some were on their subsequent placements), they were actively involved in the day-to-day planning of the operation, and given hands-on experience of newsgathering, writing and subbing."
"Several of the students commented on how they enjoyed the routine of being able to dash out on a job, pop back to the office, and write up their material - and see it all appear in print within the space of a single day."
"The policy of ensuring that students were automatically given bylines for work they had researched/written also went down well."
"The one minor gripe was that one or two students found the comments in their work experience logbooks slightly confusing. In particular, at least one has remarked that the written comments didn't bear a very close correlation to the grades they were given."
"All in all, though, from City College's point of view this was an experiment well worth repeating."
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Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.