Schools programme

Salford City Council, as part of the PSP programme, has funded an exciting programme of schools activities, open to every child in the city and aiming to encourage our young people to make the most of the opportunities MediaCityUK will bring to them and their futures.

On 5 July, a celebration event was held at The Lowry to showcase all the first year of the MediaCityUK schools programme. The event was hosted by BBC Newsround's Hayley Cutts and featured special guest NBA basketball star John Amaechi.

The short film below was premiered at the event and gives a taste of the MediaCityUK schools programme and the great work Salford schools have been doing so far.

The programme includes four projects:

Higher Futures 4 U
Year 5 pupils have the chance to visit the World of Education at the 'University of Salford' and the 'World of Work' at the BBC to give them an insight into the range of job opportunities available to them. At the end of the project the children celebrate at a graduation ceremony wearing caps and gowns!

Me and My Movie
An innovative film-making project supported by Creative Industries in Salford and run with CBBC. Classes of Year 6 pupils are given their own camcorder and are trained in everything from story-boarding to production skills, creating their own film to keep at the end of the course.

Radiowaves
Each secondary school in Salford has been funded to set up their own online radio station, offering pupils the chance to develop their own pages and use broadcast media across all their classes and projects. The Screen Shot Stories competition is now open with some amazing prizes on offer!

Supporter to Reporter
An intensive sports journalism course, giving talented youngsters the chance to develop their skills in this highly competitive field and granting them exclusive press access to high-profile sporting events.

Transcript for MediaCityUK schools programme

This is Salford.

Woman 1: The whole reason the BBC is moving to the north is so that we can become part of the community.

Woman 2: It’s just absolutely buzzing around here and people are picking up on that and moving on that.

Woman 3: And it’s happening on their doorstep. It isn’t happening in London or Hollywood.

This is Salford.

Boy: Me and My Movie, Miss Irving’s class.

Teacher: Would anyone like to tell me what I’ve got? Look what miss has got.

Boy: A clapperboard.

Girl 1: It didn’t seem real we were actually going to make a movie and it might go and let people see it.

Girl 2: You’re wondering if you’re going to do it and tension building up and in the end it was like a good success.

Teacher: They did more writing reading, more arithmetic, more group work, more communicating skills than they would ever have done in a normal week’s English or a normal week’s maths.

Girl 3: It was really good. I was telling my mum I’d been acting and writing some of the scripts to do it and she said I’m really proud of you and stuff so it was good.

Teacher: You saw a side to them in front of the camera that would never normally see, even in a drama lesson.

Girl 4: It did help with like lots more things, like being able to speak up more. Coz I’m usually a bit quiet sometimes and then it made me speak out a bit more than I did. And it just feels really good.

Teacher: You stick a camera in front of them and suddenly they’re all Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie!

Boy: Higher Futures 4 U.

Boy: I want to work for NASA studying the universe.

Teacher: Ryan - what would you like to be?

Boy: The scientific name for it is an astrophysicist.

Children: Graphic designer or a footballer. Games designer. Zoologist.

Teacher: We’ve got an awful lot of talents children that are going to go very far.

Children: Fireman, doctor, policeman, vet, dentist, teacher.

Boy: Well I want to be a doctor when I grow up.

Girl: Well I saw the university and how big it is and then I thought of going to law school for three years and then I could be a lawyer.

Teacher: What’s really cool about going to university? You stay there and you don’t have to go home every day.

Boy: Now I really want to go to university and I really want to grow up and have a job.

Woman: Higher Futures 4 U is about raising aspirations and raising awareness of opportunities these children have because you can’t strive for something you don’t know exists.

Teacher: You want to be a fashion designer Sky. How can you improve that job? How can that be an even better job?

Girl: Own a make?

Teacher: Excellent. You could have Sky’s clothes out in the shops.

Teacher: Higher Futures 4 U was just an excellent vehicle to give them a glimpse into what could be, what can be their life.

Boy: Imagine what we’ll do next.

Woman: I think Radiowaves is a fantastic opportunity for young people to get involved at an early age in what is an exciting, engaging brilliant career.

Woman 2: I’m here today to give you a few tips on how to move from being a supporter to a reporter.

Girl: This is a local derby - is the team under any pressure?

Teacher: We’ve used Radiowaves for a whole range of different things right across the curriculum.

Man: It’s about inspiring young people to raise their aspirations. If you enjoy doing something you learn much quicker. It’s real life experience they’re actually out here working to deadlines.

Teacher: Taking a microphone and speaking to someone you don’t know that well and asking them questions and thinking they’re answering how you’re going to take that conversation forward is a really powerful way of engaging.

Girl: 2 minutes into the game and the Warrington Wolves are already on the attack.

Woman 1: To give young people the confidence that they can aspire to work for the BBC and they can aspire to go to university and to show them it’s a big wide world out there and they’ve every right as the next person to go and explore it. It’s absolutely vital.

Woman 2: Young people these days are much more literate in terms of technical ability and posting stuff online and getting audio and playing around with it and learning to edit on their own computers. But this gives them an opportunity to further those skills, improve those skills, enhance those skills.

Woman 3: It’s just about understanding that they’ve got a whole heap or talents and skills that aren’t necessarily just English, maths and science.

Boy: I think it’s awesome.

Boy 2: Going on this course has inspired me to become a reporter.

Girl: I thought it was a really good experience and I wish we could really do it again.

Girl 2: I feel great!

Boy: We all felt really proud of ourselves at the graduation although we did look a bit silly in the gowns.

Teacher: I was a bit daunted by the whole idea to start with, but the children actually rise to the challenge and they did it!

Teacher 2: I would love to do it every single year. Absolutely love to do it!

Boy: If you have no confidence then you won’t be able to do anything, but if you believe and achieve then you will reach among the stars.

Girl: Just keep watching imagine what we can do.

This page was last updated on 9 July 2010