In 2001, the first Herald competition was held. Mrs Luke and her class worked very hard, and they put together a newspaper and entered it.

We did not win that year, but it was still a very good try. Papatoetoe South won, and we borrowed a copy of their paper to see what we could do better.

Then we sent them a letter to say congratulations.

In 2002, the competition was held in Term 2, not Term 3. Primary schools and Intermediate schools were in separate sections, and there to be 10 winners of each section. Each winner would get $5,000.

The programme was called Rewarding Learning Minds.

You had to do a 12 page newspaper, on A3 paper, with set tasks for each page. Only one newspaper could go in from each school. We had a book that gave all the rules.

Some of the rules were:

No plagiarising (copying)
No pictures from books or the internet
Include the tasks given for each page
Careful proofreading
Be original and creative
Reflect your community
Include the sponsor's logo on each page.