BBC School report for Huntly pupils
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
DONALD Trump and litter around The Gordon Schools were just two of the diverse topics put under scrutiny by would-be journalists in Huntly, in a filming and production day which was the culmination of the BBC School Report project at the school.
Second-year pupils posed some searching questions on camera in a bid to report on a range of issues.
For four 13-year-olds – Nick Anderson, Lee Innes, Ben Fletcher and Frankie Gillespie – aka the Urban Ninja Monkeys, they picked the larger-than-life American presidential candidate Donald Trump as their subject.
They interviewed pupils and staff to gauge their impression of Mr Trump and his high-profile campaign.
Ben said: "I interviewed the head boy and he thought he was a bit of an idiot."
The four classmates all agreed that Mr Trump was saying things that people wanted to hear and was "playing the game pretty well".
Classmates Cameron Chyla, Emma Simpson and Pietra Coward, all 13, picked a subject closer to home – the litter issue around the school.
"All of us felt there was an issue with litter and we wanted to hear what other people thought. We spoke to the janitors, some teachers and pupils," they said.
English teachers Killian McCarthy and Paula Sangster led the month-long project.
Mr McCarthy said: "They had to produce a news story in terms of doing research, producing something that was non-biased and factual and interviewing members of staff, other pupils and members of the community. We taught them how to do a vox pop, editing the footage and writing the report."
Mrs Sangster has been involved with the project since it was first launched in schools in 2008.
"It teaches them skills for life, communication and teamwork. It is a really fun project," she said.
"We get a lot of support from the community to run the project, which is good."
