The BBC estimates that 3.6 million pupils watch Newsround in school at least once a week - that’s about a third of school-age children in the UK.

The news programme, which is aimed at ages 7 to 12 and has run continuously since 1972, therefore has a significant captive audience.

Its role has arguably never been more important: in a tumultuous political landscape and an online world filled with disinformation - which has contributed to the ongoing debate about whether government should introduce a statutory ban on smartphones in schools - the need for young people to be able to access accurate, balanced news is great.

But how does Newsround produce coverage that equips young people for this increasingly fraught information era? And could its methods help teachers to do the same?

Lewis James, editor of Newsround, says the programme’s focus on enabling a young audience to digest the news agenda “brings greater clarity” to its requirement for truth and impartiality.

“We’re very conscious, obviously, of the age of the audience,” James says, “but also the age spread of the audience” - while the majority of viewers are of primary age, some are in the first years of secondary - “as well as the context: that some are watching at home with parents and some are watching it in school with classmates and a teacher.”

Newsround ‘never assumes knowledge’

In order to be accessible and appealing to all these audience types, Newsround never assumes knowledge and goes “back further than other news media outlets in explaining the context of a story”, James says - just like a teacher adapts lessons for the age of the children in front of them.

He explains that the programme tries “not to assume that our audience is completely knowledgeable about political figures, geographical locations or historical events”. Newsround presenters would describe Greenland as “an island in the North Atlantic, close to the North Pole”, for example. “In some ways, it’s about stating the obvious, but it does take a lot of thought,” says James.

While his team does this to aid a young audience’s understanding, this also sets the programme up well to ensure impartiality.

Newsround’s approach, James says, is to ask: “‘What is the story? What are the opinions?’ And to put those forward to the audience and let them make their own mind up.”

This is why you’ll often hear presenters using language such as: “Some people think this… and some people think this…”

For example, in advance of the 2024 US presidential election, the Newsround team interviewed children who supported Donald Trump, children who supported Kamala Harris and children who supported neither candidate.

“It’s really important to us that we are speaking to people with different views,” James says. “That, in today’s world, may lead to people feeling discomfort. Sometimes they’re hearing things they don’t agree with. But I don’t think that’s a tension for us.”

‘Calm presence’ in the media

Also of benefit is that Newsround is “calm, and, dare I say it, nice sometimes” compared with a wider media landscape that “can be quite febrile”, James adds. That is particularly useful when the programme covers “divisive” topics, “but also when it comes to issues which are hard in other ways, because they involve conflict or difficulties in children’s lives”. This calmness lends itself to balanced, age-appropriate reporting.

The fact that children today are growing up in a “disinformation era” has made this work “more difficult but also more rewarding at times”, says James. “One of our core aims now is to tackle disinformation. The number one way we do that is by reaching a large audience and getting information out that parents, teachers and children can rely on.”

This is also important because “one of the biggest dangers with misinformation is that people just don’t trust anything”, he adds, so countering that by building children’s trust in factual news sources is a crucial step towards developing a more information-savvy generation.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, James says, there were rumours, informed by online disinformation - such as “World War Three has just started” or “the UK is about to be invaded” - that “found their way, very quickly, from social media into the playground”.

“It was going down the year groups, and we knew that because teachers were telling us. We knew we had to respond quickly with information that was honest,” says James.

The impact of AI

In addition, he and his team “do have a role” in developing children’s media literacy skills, James adds, pointing out that BBC Bitesize has published a guide to AI aimed at pupils aged 14 and over, while on the Newsround website, interactive features allow children to vote and give their views on what they have just seen, encouraging them to critically engage with media coverage.

The rise of AI has only made this work more vital. “Many children don’t necessarily have the skills to spot what’s AI and what’s not,” James says, acknowledging that “that’s not just true of children” but adults, too.

Newsround’s recent coverage has included reports on what James describes as “pseudo-educational content on YouTube”, featuring advice from specialist contributors explaining what to look out for to spot AI content, and why you might be sceptical of it.

Giving different points of view

Meanwhile, the debate about AI gives Newsround the opportunity to present the multiple points of view that are crucial for children learning how to make their own minds up.

“There is more than one view on AI, and sometimes complex, intertwined views, where people hold different views on the same thoughts,” James says. “AI might provide amazing opportunities; it might provide new careers. Or it might be a boon for disinformation; it might cause some professions to disappear.

“Those views can coexist. It is our job to cover the development [of AI] when it’s appropriate to our audience, but not come down one way or the other. This may be a glorious future for humanity or the end of society as we know it - it’s our job to reflect views on that. It’s the same approach as any story.”

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