2. Check your picture quality. Fuzzy, out of focus pictures will not even be considered.

3. The picture must be in jpeg format and attached individually, not as part of a Word Documents, Adobe Documents, PowerPoint, etc.

4. Please keep the photos between 1 and 4 megabytes each or the quality is not good enough to publish.

5. All individuals in the photo; be they teachers, parents, even strangers on the street, must be named (first AND last names please!) from left to right.

6. Please double-check names are spelt right and that there is a name for each face in the photo – i.e. you have six people in the photo, so six names.

7. Please always include the name your school and contact details with each e-mail.

8. Please try to send one photo with all the pupils mentioned in the e-mail (if it refers to the same topic, i.e. the contestants in a swimming gala, hockey tournament, etc) instead of separate photos for each one, as we will normally be forced to choose only one to go into the paper.

9. No photos without faces will be published. If a pupil has produced a stunning piece of artwork, please photograph him/her in front of it.

10. Remember, the fewer people the better. Less than five is great, five and up is considered good, eight acceptable, but anything above 12 people will rarely be used, and then only if each face can be clearly identified.

11. Due to the number of schools in our distribution area, we normally limit it to the paper that covers the area the school is situated in. Sometimes their neighbouring papers can also use them, but this is dependent on each editor. These articles are then placed depending on size of the papers, space available and how full our files are.

Remember, we can get more than 100 e-mails a week. While not all can be used, it still means that each newspaper has a backlog of articles that they need to get through. So, if your piece does not appear immediately that does not mean it won’t eventually be published.