Reading time: 6 minutes
One of the biggest reasons school newspapers fail is not a lack of talent or enthusiasm — it is a lack of planning. Stories get started but never finished. Deadlines come and go without consequence. The second edition never appears because no one quite knows when it is supposed to happen.
An editorial calendar solves all of this. It is the single most important organisational tool a school newspaper team can have — and it takes less than an hour to set up.
Here is how to create one that actually works.
What Is an Editorial Calendar?
An editorial calendar is a schedule that maps out what your newspaper will publish, when it will be published, and what needs to happen — and by when — to make that possible.
Think of it as a production roadmap. It tells your team:
- How many editions you will publish this year
- What the publication date is for each edition
- What stories are planned for each edition
- What the deadline is for each stage of production — pitches, drafts, edits, final review, and publication
Without this roadmap, a school newspaper is just a good intention. With it, it becomes a reliable, repeatable operation.
Step 1: Decide How Often You Will Publish
Before you can build a calendar, you need to decide on your publication frequency. This depends on your team size, the time available, and your ambitions.
Monthly The most realistic option for most school teams. It gives writers enough time to research and write well, editors enough time to review properly, and the team enough breathing room to maintain quality.
Every six weeks A good option if your team is small or if students have heavy academic workloads. Slightly less frequent but still regular enough to maintain momentum and readership.
Termly (3 times per year) The minimum frequency for a school newspaper to feel like a real, ongoing publication. Good for a first year team finding its feet, but aim to increase frequency once you have established your workflow.
Weekly or fortnightly Ambitious and demanding. Only recommended for larger, experienced teams with strong teacher support and dedicated curriculum time. Digital-only publications make this more achievable than print.
Our recommendation: Start monthly. It is frequent enough to build habits and readership, but forgiving enough to allow for the inevitable disruptions of school life.
Step 2: Map Out the School Year
Once you know your publication frequency, map your editions onto the school year calendar.
Start by marking the dates you cannot publish around:
- School holidays and half terms
- Exam periods (avoid asking students to prioritise the newspaper during GCSEs, A-levels, or Maturita)
- Major school events that will dominate everyone’s attention
Then fit your publication dates around these constraints. Aim to publish:
- Near the start of term — students and parents are re-engaged and looking for news
- Before major school events — a pre-sports day or pre-production edition generates anticipation
- At the end of term — a reflective edition recapping the term’s highlights
A typical school year might support six to eight monthly editions, or three termly editions with special issues for significant events.
Step 3: Set Your Production Deadlines
For each edition, work backwards from the publication date to set intermediate deadlines. A typical monthly production cycle looks like this:
| Stage | Timing |
|---|---|
| Story pitches | 4 weeks before publication |
| Story assignments confirmed | 3.5 weeks before publication |
| First drafts submitted | 2.5 weeks before publication |
| Edited drafts returned to writers | 2 weeks before publication |
| Final drafts submitted | 1.5 weeks before publication |
| Sub-editing and proofreading | 1 week before publication |
| Layout and design | 5 days before publication |
| Final review by EIC and teacher | 3 days before publication |
| Publication | Publication date |
Build these deadlines into your editorial calendar for every edition, not just the first. Having all deadlines visible at the start of the year makes it much easier for students to plan around their other commitments.
Step 4: Plan Your Content in Advance
The best editorial calendars don’t just track deadlines — they also map out planned content. This doesn’t mean planning every article months in advance, but it does mean thinking about the themes and stories that each edition will cover.
Anchor your editions to the school calendar
Every school year is full of predictable events that make natural editorial anchors:
- September/October: Start of year features, new students, new teachers, sports season previews
- November/December: End of term reviews, festive features, charity events
- January/February: New year reflections, exam support features, winter sports
- March/April: Spring features, school productions, Easter events
- May/June: Exam season, leavers features, sports day, end of year reviews
Planning around these events ensures your team always has a starting point for each edition, even before specific story ideas emerge.
Leave room for news
Not everything can be planned in advance — and that is the point. Leave space in each edition for breaking school news, unexpected stories, and student opinion pieces that respond to current events. A good editorial calendar plans structure, not every story.
Step 5: Make the Calendar Visible
An editorial calendar only works if the whole team can see it and refer to it regularly. Choose a format that works for your team:
A shared digital document Google Sheets or a shared calendar works well for most teams. Everyone can access it from any device, and it can be updated in real time as plans change.
A physical wall calendar A large printed calendar on the wall of your classroom or meeting space makes deadlines feel real and visible. Students can add sticky notes for story ideas and check off completed stages as they go.
Your publishing platform If you use School Press Club, the platform’s built-in workflow tracks the status of each article — from draft to published — so the editorial calendar is embedded in the tool itself.
Whatever format you choose, review the calendar at every editorial meeting. It should be a living document, not something you create once and forget about.
Step 6: Build in a Review After Each Edition
After each edition is published, take 20 minutes with your team to review how the production process went. Ask:
- Did we hit our deadlines?
- Which stages of production caused the most stress or delay?
- What would we do differently next time?
- What stories worked well? What fell flat?
This short retrospective — sometimes called a “post-mortem” in professional newsrooms — is how editorial teams get better over time. Build it into your calendar as a standing item after every publication.
A Simple Template to Get You Started
Here is a basic structure you can adapt for your school:
Edition 1
- Publication date: [DATE]
- Theme / focus: Start of year
- Pitch deadline: [DATE]
- First draft deadline: [DATE]
- Final draft deadline: [DATE]
- Publication: [DATE]
Repeat this structure for each edition across the year, then share it with your whole team on the first day you meet.
The Difference a Calendar Makes
Schools that run successful, long-lasting newspapers almost always have one thing in common: a clear editorial calendar that the whole team knows about and respects.
It is not about being rigid — school life is unpredictable and plans will change. It is about having a shared structure that keeps the team moving forward even when individual circumstances make it difficult.
Start with your calendar. Everything else follows.
School Press Club helps your editorial team stay organised with a built-in workflow that tracks every article from pitch to publication. Start your school newsroom for free today.
👉 Start Writing for Free — schoolpressclub.com
Tags: editorial calendar, school newspaper, student journalism, teacher resources, newspaper planning, school press club