I composed a questionnaire to ask to students in St Thomas Aquinas their opinions on how a school magazine should look and what it should include etc. The first question I came up with was
'How do you think a school magazine should look?' The most common answers were that the magazine should have a 'professional' feel and it should be evident which school it belongs to meaning it should include the school colours.
The second question I came up with was
'Should there be a separate magazine for each year?' The people that agreed with this went on to explain that this would be ideal as each year group requires different information and latest news. The people that disagreed said that the magazine should be aimed at the whole school and should include relevant information for the whole school.
The third question was
'Should each house have its own magazine?' Seven out of the ten people who took part in the questionnaire agreed that there should be separate magazines and the rest disagreed that houses should be joint into one.
The fourth question I composed was
'What topics do you think are important to include?' The choices I included were Latest News, House System and Uniform. Six people agreed that 'Latest News' was the most important. Two people agreed that 'Uniform' was and the other two said the 'House System' was.
The fifth question was
'Who should the magazine be aimed at?' The options I gave were Students, Teachers and Parents. A huge nine of out ten people agreed that the magazine should be aimed at 'Students' and the other person said that it should be aimed at 'Teachers.'
The sixth and final question was
'Should it include aspects from outside school life such as Sports, DofE, Spiritual Life etc?' All of the people that took part in this questionnaire agreed that the school magazine should include important information from outside of school. One person added that it should because it is interesting to hear about news from outside of school and is different.
This is the cover of my school magazine I had to produce for the preliminary exercise. I decided to base my magazine wholly on Sixth Form making it appeal to a more niche market and meaning the articles included are specific to Sixth Formers and Sixth Form life itself. The Masthead I created links to St Thomas Aquinas' house colours and 'Back 2 School' reveals it is one of the first issues of the magazine published in this school year. I made the number two back to front to cleverly illustrate the fact students are returning 'back' to school after the Summer holidays. I used different typace and font colours for each different cover line to attract the readers attention and initiate the different articles. I included a barcode, date and the online edition of the magazine which are some of the main codes and conventions used in magazines. 
This is the contents page for my school magazine. I have used the same masthead from the front cover so my magazine looks more professional as it is consistent. I have used some images of former Sixth Form students to link to the fact it is wholly a Sixth Form magazine. Under each photo I have added a short caption to show who is in the picture and what occasion it was taken at. I also used the school logo to illustrate what school the magazine belongs to. As it is the content page I have included some of the articles featured inside so the readers would know what to expect without having to read through the whole magazine. The masthead is bigger then the rest of the text to make it stand out to the reader. I used a back to front '2' to illustrate that it is a back to school edition of the school magazine. I used the phrase 'What's inside?' to reveal to the reader what actricles they will recieve when buying the magazine. I put this title in red and underlined it in black to link to the house colours of the magazine and keep the colour scheme consistent. I used different coloured arrows to illustrate each different article and to add a bit more colour to the page to attract the reader. The colours I have used also link to the colours in the photo. 
