Bognor Observer!

It has been confirmed today that the Bognor Observer will be sending a photographer to our private celebration in January! We feel that this will help create an atmosphere where the children can be proud about what they have achieved over the last couple of months!

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Making the School Newsletter

The school have been extremely supportive with our project over the past couple of months. They were extremely excted when Hugh Dennis visited our Yr9 pupils and the project was featured in the December Newsletter. See below...



© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Review and feedback from the Yr 9 pupils and JW (staff)

The review and feedback will be posted asap!

 

We are sorry for the delay.

 

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Exciting update - example of the News and Weather feature!

Click here to hear the audio clip from Diverse FM. An excting sneak preview of the radio podcast: News and Weather!

 Watch this space for the finalised podcast!

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Wednesday 8th December

Wow! An emotional day, as it was our last official lesson with the Yr9s. A fabulous day none the less and the children excelled themselves with creativity and flair!

It was very apparent how the children have all grown in confidence in not only their speaking and listening skills, but also as people. The last two weeks has really been an exciting time for both the Yr9s and us, which is definitely evident in what they have produced.

Today they started by finishing last week’s features: Sport, Gossip and News. They were then able to critique their work and many of them reflected on their feature to help them improve their second.

All the children finished their second feature before lunch: Weather, Comedy, Interviews and Soaps. This enabled us to decide as a group the ordering of the features and to choose their songs.  We also had the opportunity of evaluating the project with the children, and they made video blogs about their feelings (these will be posted in the following blog).

Over the past 7 weeks we have watched the children grow in confidence; from their interviewing and questioning skills, to working as a team with peers they may not have necessarily chosen to work with. We all felt that they really worked well to accomplish a lot in one day and the most important part of today was that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. A great achievement for all of them!

We also spoke about the Fantastic Finish with the children today. In January we will have a private celebration with selected guests: from the school, university, parents, governors and hopefully external people who have helped inspire the children. The celebration will enable the children to introduce their pilot radio broadcast for Diverse FM. The outcome will hopefully mean that the school will continue the radio station with our special group of Yr9s to becoming the experts!

We will now just have to wait in anticipation for the Fantastic Finish in January!

To view the lesson plan click here.
To view the powerpoint click here.

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Wednesday 1st December

Today’s session was intense and really challenging for both us and the children.  The children worked in small self selected groups to plan and record their first section of the radio broadcast.  The morning was spent researching information to go in their sections and the children used their knowledge of each genre effectively.  Some children worked really well and started recording in the morning session, while for others the process took longer. 

One group worked on a celebrity gossip feature.  Lots of time was spent finding the right stories and they found it quite hard to keep to deadlines and work under pressure.  Another factor in this group’s difficulties may have been the size of the group; they worked in a four whereas other groups were pairs.     Some groups had more straight forward genres to work with, for example news and sport.  The children persevered and all groups finally finished their planning and recording for their first sections today.   

Some of the difficulties for the day were:

-          Failure of some recording equipment;

-          Finding quiet space to record;

-          Working together; and

-          Confidence to record and listen to their own voices.

We tried to overcome these difficulties, for example, by adapting to the equipment that we did have available and changing our initial plans.  We all got a bit stressed and it tested our team work skills as teachers.  This definitely gives us things to contemplate for the next session to ensure that we minimise any problems next time. 

Despite the struggles of the day, it ended well with a preview of the final podcast.  We listened to B + G’s news section and it sounds really professional.  We are all very impressed!!

Here is a section of the girls' celebrity gossip script that they planned and researched:

Headline:  One Direction's Harry Styles' has new model girlfriend

One Direction star Harry Styles is reportedly dating an older woman - a 23-year-old model called Syanne Patterson, who he met backstage on The X Factor.

One Direction hunk Harry Styles, 16, is said to have been spotted snogging 23-year-old model Syanne Patterson for several weeks after they met backstage on The X Factor.

The pair have kept their fledgling romance a secret until producers of the show caught them in a clinch last week.

A source said: "They've been seeing each other really hush-hush for a bit but producers started asking questions.

"He's completely smitten."

Only last week, Harry was linked to fellow contestant Cher Lloyd - though she has been linked to a lot of X Factor people, all seemingly false.

Will Simon Cowell want to nip this romance in the bud so he can concentrate on the band...?

To view the lesson plan click here.
To view the powerpoint click here.
To view the writing frame used click here.
To view the time line used click here. 

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

Wednesday 29th November - Hugh Dennis!

There was a huge buzz of excitement around the whole school (staff included!) about today’s visitor, Hugh Dennis.  The children came in first thing eager to meet our celebrity guest, however one thing was different today – no food!  We wanted to maintain an air of professionalism around Hugh so we didn’t really want toast crumbs about the room and we also felt that we wanted to keep distractions to a minimum. 

Together, we set up the room and went through what was going to happen.  The children rehearsed their questions with us hot seating as Hugh.  Throughout the weeks we have seen the children become much more confident in their questioning skills and this was really evident in their practice run.  J and T (two of the children) volunteered to welcome Hugh and introduce our project to him.  They were a bit nervous but really proud to be doing it. 

Helen was given the task of collecting Mr Dennis from reception, however due to the excitement (and Dyslexia) she persisted in calling him Hugh Laurie to everyone’s amusement.  Quick changes of plan were needed, and Sophia took on the challenge.  Helen and Ollie noticed a silence in the room as the children waited in anticipation of his arrival...

Hugh quietly arrived and we were all struck by how down to earth he was.  And we loved him.  He took his seat in the middle of our horseshoe and the interrogation began!  The boys were straight in there with the questions that they had prepared and they seemed to respond well to Hugh’s answers and ask questions based on this.  Hugh was really engaging and everyone in the room felt part of the discussion.  We think the fact that Hugh is a comedian and on television really helped to keep the children interested and his manner with his audience was superb!  This provided such an exemplary model to the children for their own radio production. 

Something that struck a chord with many of the children was Hugh’s answer to J’s question about what he thinks has made his career so successful.  Hugh responded by explaining that the most important thing was being yourself and not trying to imitate other people who you think are good.  He went on to say that audiences can see through this if you’re not being true to yourself. 

After an hour of discussion it was time for goodbye.  Hugh kindly signed autographs and a group picture was taken for posterity.  Having such a high profile visitor in to school provided the children with inspiration to begin to plan out their own radio broadcasts after break. 

The day was a great success; however one thing marred the day.  We tried to record the hour long interview for use in the final podcast.  Unfortunately, something went wrong and our recording was lost.  This was quite hard to deal with initially, especially breaking it to the children, but they were still really pleased with the day and dealt with it maturely. 

We’re all looking forward to next week where the hard work really starts – planning and recording our radio programmes!

To view the lesson plan click here.
To view the powerpoint for the lesson click here. 

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010