Hearts and Wings magazine

Hearts and Wings magazine is a brand new journal created by Year 12 and Year 13 pupils. The editing team consists of eight people, studying International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at Haileybury Astana. The magazine is supervised by Mr Daniel Bell, the English Teacher at Haileybury Astana.

Aniya, editor-in-chief of Hearts and Wings, shared with us the most challenging parts of creating a school magazine and discussed factors for selecting stories for each issue. 

Why did you decide to start a school newspaper?

Student engagement is important for any school community, and one of the best ways to achieve that is through student journalism. When the newspaper was founded, our school was missing any news source that was from the perspective of students, and for pupils themselves. So, that was the reason for its inception, to get more people involved with school events and news.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the team? 

Our team consists of mostly year 12 students, and a year 13 student. Within our team, we have a team of writers, artists, photographers, editors and designers. Our team includes: Aniya (Editor-in-Chief/writer), Alima (writer/editor), Korkem-Ay (writer/editor), Naira (writer/editor/designer), Begim-Ana (writer), Merey (T) (photographer), Maria (photographer), Anara (cover design, artist). 

What is the most challenging part of creating a newspaper? 

The most challenging part is coordinating everyone to produce a cohesive piece of content, as well as picking stories that are relevant and will be engaging for our audience. 

How do you select stories for a magazine? What kind of stories are of particular interest to your pupils? 

For each edition, we try to cover recent school events, as well as any stories that we find students may relate to. For instance, in our Christmas-themed edition, we covered the recent Christmas bazaar, as well as an interview with a student with an interesting Extended Essay topic.

This may be interesting not only for the students in IB but also for students who are looking forward to it in the near future. In addition, we include stories regarding the theme of our issue – such as the history of Christmas in our most recent edition.

What is your primary target audience? Pupils, teachers or parents? 

Our primary audience is pupils as we are a school-based newspaper and we enjoy informing them of the events that go on both inside and outside the building so that they stay aware. 

What sections do you have in your paper?

We have respective sections for articles regarding our main newspaper theme, that changes every edition, articles about interesting things that can be experienced in the school and global news. 

Would you like to pursue a career as a journalist in the future? 

A career as a journalist is definitely something I consider in the future, as I like to bring attention to things that I think matter and amplify the stories and voices that may not be heard otherwise.

How did you come up with a design for Hearts and Wings? 

We discuss and pick the main theme with regards to school events, and jot down some ideas that are then passed on to our cover designer Anara. She has as much creative freedom as she wants within the limits of the theme for the cover. We also make sure to include school colours to keep the magazine cohesive with the school marketing.

Our designer Naira created the basic layout for each edition and the colours are changed respectively to the theme. Any small details to finish off the pages are added by her. 

Who is in charge of photography? 

We have two people working on photography. Maria is our photographer, and Merey T helps us edit the photos. 

They gather pictures in school once they know what the article themes are going to be. They photograph everything within the school if it's current events, posters hanging on the school walls or decorations for the upcoming event.

Where can we get an electronic copy of Hearts and Wings? Is a hard copy available? 

The electronic copy of Hearts & Wings is available for the public on Haileybury Astana’s website. Hard copies are available around the senior school (in the library, IB lounge, front reception).