The NewsWise programme was developed as a collaborative partnership between Google, The Guardian Foundation, the National Literacy Trust and the PSHE Association, based on a shared mission to create a generation of news literate children. This report covers outcomes from the pilot phase in early 2018 and includes findings relating to 547 pupils aged 9 to 11 in schools across England and Wales. 234 matched survey responses indicated that:
- More than three quarters of pupils (76.3%) had a better idea of why news stories might be created, and showed a deeper understanding of how news stories are created, with the percentage aware of the need for fact-checking increasing from 61.5% to 75.6%
- More children were confident about their ability to spot fake news, with under half (47.2%) saying it was ‘easy’ or ‘quite easy’ before taking part in a NewsWise workshop, and more than three quarters (76.2%) afterwards
- Three-quarters were more confident about reading news (78.4%), talking about news (76.1%) and challenging family and friends about news they weren’t sure about (73.6%)
- 10 out of 10 teachers said they would recommend NewsWise training to other schools