Youngsters at North Halifax Grammar School created their own versions of the Courier for the fourth annual newspaper challenge.

They used their IT skills to get the presentation right, including a masthead, headline and adverts.

Their skills were to the fore as they interviewed teachers and other pupils and wrote a gripping news story to a tight deadline.

The theme of the front page story was a modern day plague. The illness struck when a group of students went on a school trip to Fountains Abbey, Ripon.

The budding journalists had to imagine how one of the party contracted the mystery illness and what happened when the rest and teachers had to remain in quarantine in the school where an emergency hospital unit was set up.

Geraldine Crampton, assistant head of English, said: "We organised an event with the whole year group and gave them the opportunity to do the same thing.

"It was part of the activities during the end-of-term enrichment week."

All the Year 7 students had taken part in a project looking at local newspapers and had training in the IT skills they needed, learning how to use publishing and word-processing packages.

The six best front pages were by Peter Richardson, with "Kids Quarantined After Day Trip", Hannah Speed with "Trip of Terror", Isabel Pinder with "Blast From The Past", Phoebe Hendy for "Quarantine After School Trip", Maddie Green for "Deserted Abbey Attracts Deadly Disease" and Joe Cockburn with "School Lock In".