Editorial Policy

1. What we publish

Two kinds of story appear on this website.

School news

The life of Bright Sparks Junior School: term dates and calendar changes, announcements for parents, school events, sports fixtures and results, club activities, academic milestones, and the achievements of our pupils and staff.

We publish this so that parents and guardians have one dependable place to find out what is happening, rather than relying on word of mouth or a message forwarded through a class group.

Wider news

We also carry news from beyond our gates — from our community in Seguku and Wakiso, from Uganda, and from around the world — where it is of genuine interest or use to our families. That includes:

• Sport — local, national and international fixtures, results and achievements, including Ugandan athletes and teams competing abroad.
• The economy — matters that reach ordinary households, such as the cost of living, school-related costs, employment and business news.
• Education — curriculum and examination announcements, education policy as it affects schools and pupils, and developments in teaching.
• Health, science and technology — public health guidance, and discoveries or developments a young reader would find worth knowing.
• Community life — cultural events, public holidays, weather and road or safety notices affecting families travelling to and from school.

We publish this because our pupils and their families are part of a community, a country and a world beyond the school, and because a child who reads about the world grows up understanding it better.

What we do not publish

Widening what we cover does not widen it without limit. We do not publish:

• Party politics. We carry no campaigning, no partisan commentary, no endorsement of or attack on any party, candidate or official. Where a story has an unavoidable political dimension — a budget, an education policy — we report what was decided and what it means for families, and we take no side.
• Opinion and editorial columns. We report; we do not argue.
• Material unsuitable for a primary school audience, including graphic reports of crime, violence, accidents or disaster. Where such an event matters to our families — a road closure, a health warning — we give the practical facts without the distressing detail.
• Religious or ethnic advocacy. We report on the festivals and observances of our school community with respect, and we promote no faith above another.
• Advertising, sponsored articles or paid placements of any kind. See Ownership and funding.
• Rumour. If we cannot stand it up, we do not run it.

2. Who writes it

Articles are written by the school’s communications office — staff members writing on behalf of the school — and are published under the school’s name. Where an article is written by a named member of staff, that person is credited on the article itself.

Every article on this site carries a byline and, beneath it, the date and time it was published. Nothing appears anonymously.

The Head Teacher is responsible for everything published in the news section and approves each article before it goes out.

3. How a story is checked

How we check a story depends on whether it happened here or somewhere else.

School news

We check it against the school’s own records:

• Dates and times are checked against the official school calendar, so that what the news page says matches what the calendar says.
• Names of pupils, staff and visiting schools are checked for spelling against school records.
• Results and achievements are confirmed with the teacher or coach who was there.
• Money matters — fees, tour costs, deadlines — are confirmed with the school bursar before they are published anywhere on this site.

News from outside the school

We were not there, so we do not write as though we were. For any story from the community, the country or abroad:

• We say where it came from. Every such article names the news organisation, official body or office the information came from, and links to it where there is something to link to.
• Anything significant is checked twice — against at least two established news organisations, or against the official source itself, such as a ministry statement or a published result. Where only one organisation is reporting something, we say so plainly in the article.
• We summarise, we do not copy. We write our own account in our own words and point readers to the fuller report. We do not republish another publisher’s article, and we use a photograph only where the school has the right to use it.
• We separate what is confirmed from what is still developing, and say which is which.
• We do not rewrite what we do not understand. If a story is beyond what we can check properly, we leave it to the news organisations whose job it is.

Whichever kind of story it is: where we cannot yet confirm a detail, we say so in the article rather than guess, and we update it once we know.

4. Dates and updates

Each article shows when it was published. If we later change it in any way that matters — a corrected fact, a moved date, new information — the article also shows when it was last updated, so you can tell at a glance whether what you read last week still stands.

We do not quietly rewrite a published article. Small fixes such as a typing error are made without comment; anything that changes the meaning is noted in the article itself.

5. Corrections

We will sometimes get something wrong. When we do, we want to know, and we would far rather hear it from you than leave it standing.

To ask for a correction:

1. Tell us which article — the headline, or a link to it — and what is wrong.
2. Send it to brightsparksjuniorsch@gmail.com with “Correction request” in the subject line, or telephone the school office on +256 700 116 093.
3. We check it against our records and come back to you.
4. If we are wrong we fix it promptly, and the article’s “Updated” time changes so that the correction is visible rather than hidden.

If a mistake was serious — a wrong date that could have caused a parent to miss something, or an error about a named child — we will say plainly in the article what was wrong and what has been corrected.

6. Photographs of pupils

Pictures of children at work and at play are part of telling the story of a school. They also deserve more care than anything else we publish.

• We do not publish a child’s full name alongside their photograph unless there is a good reason and the parent is content for us to do so.
• We do not publish a child’s class, home area or any other detail that would help a stranger find them.
• We do not publish photographs of children in a state of undress, including at swimming.
• If you want a picture of your child taken down, tell us and we will remove it. You do not have to give a reason, and we will not ask for one.

7. Comments

Some articles allow comments. Every comment is read by a member of staff before it appears, which is why yours may not show up straight away.

We will not publish a comment that names or identifies a pupil, that is abusive or discriminatory, that makes an accusation against a member of staff or another family, that advertises something, or that raises a private matter better dealt with by contacting the school directly.

A complaint about the school is taken seriously, but the comment section is not the place for it. Please contact the school office and it will be handled properly.

Commenters give a name and an email address. The name is shown; the email address is never published. See our Privacy Policy for what happens to it.

8. Ownership and funding

This website is owned and paid for by Bright Sparks Junior School and is published by the school. It is funded entirely out of the school’s own resources.

We carry no advertising, no sponsored articles and no paid placements of any kind. Nobody outside the school pays to appear on these pages, and nobody outside the school has any say in what we publish. Where we mention another school or organisation — a fixture against another school, a supplier, a place our pupils visited on tour — no money has changed hands for that mention.

9. Reaching the editor

Questions about anything on the news pages — a correction, a photograph, a comment that was not published, or how we decided to cover something — should go to the school office, marked for the attention of the Head Teacher.