Facilities & Location

The Newsroom

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When you are working in the Newsroom you can expect the working journalists who visit us to be envious.

This is where you will chase up, write and publish stories for our online newspaper www.poolepeople.co.uk.

The newsroom is equipped with

sleek new i-mac computers
wireless internet and printing
free photocopying, scanning and fax
two Humax lcd flat screen televisions running BBC News 24 and Sky News
eight phone lines with a dedicated number
your own poolepeople e-mail accounts
a daily supply of national and local newspapers
data projection facilities to help explain subbing and editing packages

The Seminar Room

You will use the Seminar Room for lessons in Politics, Law and Shorthand. This is also the room where you will meet guest speakers and take part in drama workshops.

The room is equipped with:

a data projector
a mac mini running both apple and microsoft software
wireless keyboard and mouse
an Overhead Projector
a DVD player

The Common Room

There is a spacious Common Room where you can relax between lectures and at the start of the day.

In the Common Room you can have:

cold drinks
free fresh coffee and tea
books
magazines

We also have a kitchen where you can prepare simple meals and store food.

The Town

Up To Speed’s Training Centre is based in Poole on the South Coast. That means we have sea, sand and a lot of sunshine. But our location also has real advantages when you are training to be a reporter.

We are within walking distance of courts, council offices, a major Arts Centre, and the Town’s main shopping precinct. The NCTJ exams you take on our Fast-Track course are based around covering a Town of this size. To do well in those exams, you need to know what makes a Town tick and how to find stories from the people who live there. And there are plenty of stories out there.

Poole Facts

Poole is not a sleepy seaside town. It is part of a conurbation, with Bournemouth and Christchurch, of 350,000 people. The three towns are fronted by a seven-mile sandy beach, and Poole itself is set at the mouth of one of the world’s biggest natural harbours.

Within a few miles of Up To Speed’s front door you can find wildlife sanctuaries, a fishing fleet, the Sunseeker yacht factory, Premiership footballers and pop stars living in glitzy waterfront mansions, farming communities, the home of the Royal Marines’ crack SBS unit, red squirrels, and even Britain’s most popular naturist beach.

There is no shortage of things to write about. And when you’ve finished writing at the end of the day, you can head to the beach to relax. It’s a whole lot better than rounding off your day of training crammed onto an underground train.

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