"Without Up To Speed I would not have been able to get a job in journalism. The facilities there are first class and it was a great atmosphere to take my first few steps as a journalist."
Ryan Jennings, Reporter, Maldon Standard
"Up to Speed is friendly and supportive, with brilliantly helpful tutors. Up to Speed has definitely prepared me well for my career, and I know my editor thinks so too!"
Helen Tunnicliffe, Senior Reporter, The Chemical Engineer
"I find that I use my knowledge of Public Affairs every day. I often find myself writing political stories."
Daniel Shane, Editor, Network Middle East
"It is fantastic to have got something to do in my chosen field after taking the course at Up To Speed"
Sean Raymond, Sports Content Writer
"I'm pretty sure that my work experience at the Echo was responsible for me getting the job ... and of course obtaining 100wpm shorthand!"
Alana Lewis, News Editor, Llanelli Star
"We are here to give you the skills to succeed. Contact us now to make sure you are Up To Speed."
Tom Hill, Up To Speed's Founder
"I would recommend a course at Up To Speed to anyone seeking a career in journalism. The tuition is first-rate, the facilities are excellent, and the staff are knowledgeable and supportive."
Timothy John, Assistant Editor, Training Journal
"I really enjoyed my time here and I couldn't have asked for better teachers. It's amazing how much I have learned in these last couple of months. Doing this course has opened many doors for me."
Chrissy Symmons, Reporter, Shropshire Star
"The course is housed in a fantastic setup, giving students the facilities and guidance to develop their own style of journalism to a professional standard. I'm not surprised to hear of the success of past students."
Neil Lancefield, Press Association Multi-Media Journalist
"I'm so grateful for the tuition and help I received during my time at Up To Speed and also after the course finished."
Rebecca Greenow, Celebrity Writer, Reveal
"I learned about Twitter and blogging at Up To Speed and that's how I became an online columnist writing about Formula 1. It's so exciting."
Laura Allard, F1 Blogger and Social Media Executive, Cunard
"Tom could not have been more helpful when it came to advice and help with job applications. "
Ruth Norris, Assistant Editor, Cambridge University Press
"I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Up to Speed and it set me up well to begin my first job as a reporter; I use the knowledge I gained on the course on a daily basis. Mastering 100wpm shorthand was the best thing I've ever done."
Hannah White, Senior reporter, Salisbury Journal
"Up To Speed was a real springboard into sports journalism and the skills I learnt on the course have been highly valuable to my work at Sky Sports."
Rachel Griffiths, Football writer, Skysports.com
"If you're considering working in journalism, the NCTJ is the only place to start. I'd have no hesitation in recommending Up To Speed as the place to begin that career."
Rory White, Used Car Writer, What Car?
"I definitely wouldn't have stood a chance of getting my job if I hadn't been on this course, so thanks for everything."
Jack Kitson, Sports content writer
"The course has set me up really well for the job and I am loving it."
James Bass, Freelance editor, ESPN
"I am so pleased to have found a job writing about sport, it's something I have always wanted to do."
Chris Knight, Sports content writer
"Tom does a great job at Up To Speed. I went from knowing very little about journalism to earning some fantastic grades, invaluable contacts and top-end freelance work."
Michael Dias, Founder, Fame Awaits
"My editor on placement just kept saying that it was a brilliant idea to qualify before going to university."
Becca Parlby, Gap Year NCTJ student
"It's always been a dream of mine to work for a magazine, and I couldn't be happier as I am now the editor of a title."
Alice Rook, Editor, Do More Magazine
"I am really pleased that it has all worked out for me and that my decision to do something different, and not just follow all my friends to university, has paid off."
Heather Findlay, Features Writer, That's Life magazine
"It was absolutely excellent as I got the qualifications I needed and my boss was really impressed that I hadn't just followed everyone else and gone to university."
Laura Herbert, Reporter, Reading Post
"I have no hesitation in describing the knowledge, skills and experience both the course and Tom himself has provided me with as invaluable for securing a job in journalism."
Paul Briden, Writer, Know Your Mobile
"Without Tom's journalism school, I would never have landed my first job. Likewise, my every subsequent career success can be directly or indirectly ascribed to the education I received at Up to Speed."
Alexander Shaw, Parliamentary Researcher
Friday, May 10th, 2013 at 8:30 am
If you have passed all your NCTJ exams and have 100wpm shorthand, then you can apply for this position in Devon.
The Midweek Herald is an award-winning free newspaper based in Sidmouth and the successful applicant will be trained to take the NCTJ’s senior qualification, the NQJ.
You will need your own transport and a clean driving licence.
Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 4:32 am
Up To Speed Journalism Student Ruth Norris
Up To Speed Journalism student Ruth Norris has landed a job with the Cambridge News.
Ruth is starting work on Monday, just a week after taking her final NCTJ exam in Court Reporting.
She joined Up To Speed in January with a degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Southampton.
“I feel for the first time that I’ve found something that I’m good at, but also enjoy,” said Ruth, 22.
“After university I had no idea what to do and my self-esteem was quite low, but the course at Up To Speed has given me so much confidence in my ability and I just can’t wait to start work now.”
During her time on the News Reporting course at Up To Speed Ruth has passed exams in Reporting, Public Affairs, Media Law and 100wpm Shorthand. She is waiting for final results in Video Journalism and this week’s Court Reporting exam.
Ruth also completed work placements with the Cambridge News, the Bristol Evening Post and the BBC’s Focus magazine.
Up To Speed is based at the Daily Echo in Bournemouth and runs courses twice a year in News Reporting, Sports Reporting, Magazine Journalism and Photojournalism.
The next course starts at the end of September and finishes in February, 2012. Call 01202 411288 to find out more.
Monday, April 11th, 2011 at 2:25 am
By the time most of her former classmates from sixth form college were coming to the end of their second term at university Heather Findlay had already landed a job in journalism.
Heather, 19, left Brockenhurst College in Hampshire with straight As in her A Levels, but decided university was not for her.
“I really wanted to be a journalist and I wanted to make a start as soon as I possibly could,” said Heather.
Heather found the fastest route into an intensively competitive occupation was to take a fast-track NCTJ course. She started the course at Up To Speed in September, 2010 and took her last exams in February, 2011.
Working Journalist: Heather Findlay decided against a degree
However, she combined the second half of the course with freelance work at Medavia, a news and features agency in Bristol.
After a trial period with Medavia, Heather impressed her employers with her ability to dig out and cover a range of features and she was offered a permanent job at the end of March.
“I am really pleased that it has all worked out for me and that my decision to do something different, and not just follow all my friends to university, has paid off,” said Heather.
There are still spaces on Up To Speed’s course in September, 2011 if you have been inspired by Heather’s story.
Call us on 01202 761944 or 01202 411288 to find out more.
Saturday, November 20th, 2010 at 4:19 am
Two Up To Speed Journalism students are celebrating this week after passing their 100 words per minute shorthand exam in record time.
Lauren May and Hannah White knocked four weeks off the previous record for an Up To Speed student and passed the critical exam just ten weeks after starting with us.
Perfect 100 in 10 Weeks And No Mistakes
A Teeline Star In Just Ten Weeks
Lauren(pictured left) passed the exam with no mistakes. She is a graduate from the University of Surrey.
Hannah White, who has a 2.1 in English from Southampton University, managed to combine her Teeline practice with regular Friday shifts in the newsroom at the Salisbury Journal.
Their shorthand tutor Karen Ballam said: “Lauren and Hannah both worked really hard from the start of the course and many of our other students are close behind them. Shorthand is a key part of the Up To Speed course and a vital skill, which helps our students to land good jobs.”
The previous record holder was Annie Roberts, another Southampton English graduate, who passed the exam in 14 weeks. Annie is now a successful financial journalist working in London for Pageant Magazines.
Annie Roberts - Our Previous Shorthand Record Holder
Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 4:45 am
At Up To Speed we have always believed in equipping our journalism students with traditional skills, but we also believe that it is vital to prepare them for the 21st Century workplace.
All Up To Speed journalism students are taught and encouraged to create their own websites and to make professional use of social media such as Twitter and Linked In.
We have created our own Linked In groups so that our former students can network with people who have gone into the same branch of journalism when they leave us.
Up To Speed's Journalism Jobs Feed
We also use Twitter to give all of our students, past and present, the latest news on new jobs as they are advertised.
You can use the journalism jobs feed yourself by following us
We hope you find it useful!
Saturday, November 13th, 2010 at 4:50 am
Friday, October 22nd, 2010 at 11:05 am
In a week dominated by grim headlines about job cuts and economic gloom, journalism students at Up To Speed have been out on the streets interviewing people affected by the news and filing their stories instantly on twitter.
The Up To Speed students have also been working on their own CVs and on covering letters as they plan their assault on the journalism jobs market.
Up To Speed’s founder Tom Hill tells the story of the week, a yarn with a happy ending.
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 6:57 am
By Up To Speed Journalism’s Founder Tom Hill.
August is supposed to be hot. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s a holiday month and it’s in the middle of Summer.
But as I write, the leaden skies are weeping. And across the nation, more than 660,000 university applicants are anxiously waiting to see if their transfer from school to university will be seamless and pain-free.
Alas, it is predicted that about a third of those people will be disappointed.
A Level results can cast a shadow every bit as daunting as the cumulo-nimbus clouds in our sodden, summer skies.
And if clearing doesn’t bring a ray of hope by the end of a wet weekend, Autumn can be a daunting and uncertain prospect.
If you look in the dictionary, you will find the other ‘august’ is a word meaning venerable and imposing. It all sounds very scary.
However, all is not lost. September can bring un-seasonal sunshine and Indian Summers. It can be a month of serendipity.
And if you go back to the dictionary, you will find that, if you leave aside ‘auks’ and ‘aunts’, August is nestled between ‘augury’ and ‘au pair’. The former is defined as an “omen or prophesy” while the latter describes a first taste of work often associated with foreign travel.
An unexpected interruption between school and university, even in an economic downturn, might mean things will start to look up for people who would otherwise have drifted along on an educational conveyor belt.
It can provide an opportunity to learn some lessons about life and to ask some deeper questions about who you are and what you really want to be.
Teachers and lecturers, who may well have spent their entire lives cloistered in classrooms and on campuses, may often give the distorted impression that your life story will be a logical progression of qualifications and appointments mapped out in a curriculum vitae.
Our education system does produce people like that. There are barristers working in the Inns of Court who have attended Oxford and Cambridge and England’s finest public schools. They live out their whole lives in neat quadrangles.
But for most people life isn’t like that. They work in jobs that didn’t exist when they left school and which they “fell into” by a mixture of whim and chance.
Many people find talents and life skills in the workplace they didn’t realise they possessed at school.
A successful conference producer I know took his A Levels in the 1970s when the exams were graded A, B, C, D, E, O(for O-level) and F for Fail, a word almost completely excised from today’s assessment language. His results transcript read bluntly: F O F F. It may not be his happiest memory, but he didn’t let his August angst hold him back.
And it is often the same story with people who have prospered in life. Their success may well be built on chaos, chance or charisma. Three Cs can be a source of pride.
Tom Hill founded Up To Speed Journalism four years ago and has worked as a journalist for ITN, Sky News, GMTV and the BBC.
He has also worked as a university admissions tutor.
Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 11:16 am
If you’re thinking of a becoming a journalist, then Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop is essential reading.
On the surface it is a funny, but improbable, story of an innocent abroad. Boot of the Beast was a victim of mistaken identity, but with a stroke of good luck, the cub reporter outfoxed a pack of wily war reporters and beat them to the story.
What makes it such an amazing book, so many years on, is that so many of Evelyn Waugh’s satirical swipes at journalism hold true today.
Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Over the last few weeks I’ve been looking at some of the key skills a reporter needs to develop. The posts so far have been about people skills, because part of the formula for success is, “who you know”. After this post, which is about putting all those contacts together in one safe place, I will move on to some more specific, practical skills, because “what you know” is the other half of the winning formula.
One of the great things about being a journalist is that you don’t have to take a briefcase home with you every night, full of paperwork to read for the next morning.
However, it does help to have big pockets with room enough for a reporter’s notebook, a pen and your contacts book.
An extensive, well-maintained and up to date contacts book is a vital part of your equipment when you are covering daily news stories.
On the morning of May 12th 1994, the Labour Party Leader John Smith died suddenly, aged just 55.
On the Lunchtime News at ITN, the team had to react quickly to secure key political figures to give their reaction to the tragedy. The speed of ITN’s response was partly down to one producer and his contacts book. His job was to book guests to appear on the programme, and over the months and years before this date, he had made a point of collecting their numbers. Not just work numbers, but mobile numbers, home numbers and pager numbers.
As soon as the news broke, he hit the phones and ITN had every one of those guests live on air before the BBC. ITN won a Royal Television Society Award for its coverage of this major political event.
Incidentally, outside the world of news, it may seem strange for journalists to win awards for their reaction to a family tragedy. However, as I mentioned in my last post, those journalists have in the past had to report the death and disappearance of their own colleagues with the same speed and professionalism.
One of John Smith’s daughters, Sarah, was working as a producer at the BBC at the time. She has since joined ITN, where she is Washington Correspondent for Channel 4 News.
On a lighter note, a couple of years later my own contacts book came to the rescue of another producer on the Lunchtime News, who was chasing a story about the football star Paul Gascoigne.
Gazza’s childhood friend Jimmy Gardner had always kept an eye on the star footballer, even moving to Rome so that the two Geordies could go fishing together when Paul had finished training sessions for Lazio.
The tabloids had picked up on the friendship and revelled in Jimmy’s nickname – Five Bellies.
Don’t ask me how, but back in 1996 I had Jimmy’s home number in my contacts book and so I passed it over to my friend Chris, who had what Jamie Oliver would call a “pukka” Home Counties accent. Chris called the number and the conversation went something like this:
Newcastle: Hello.
London: Is that Mr Gardner?
Newcastle: It is, man.
London: Mr Jimmy Gardner?
Newcastle: Aye. How can I help you?
London: Well, I’m from ITN and I’m writing a story on Paul Gascoigne and I just wanted to check the facts out with you.
Newcastle: Oh, no, no, no, man. It’s me son you want, Five Bellies. And I’m afraid he’s out. Can you call back later?
On this occasion, the contacts book may not have helped to win an award, but it did allow us to follow the story up more quickly and to gain an intriguing insight into life in the Gardner household.
If you are a specialist writer, for instance working as a Showbiz Reporter, your contacts book can literally be what secures you a better job ahead of other journalists.
So, from your first day as a reporter start gathering those numbers and keeping them in a contacts book. You never know when they may come in handy. Today’s backbencher may become Prime Minister in a few years and unknown recording artists have a habit of becoming world-famous overnight sensations.
