A selection of educational visit ideas to help inspire the next journalists, television stars and musicians in your class.
1. The Guardian Foundation
The Guardian Foundation offers free interactive sessions (pictured above) for secondary schools at its education centre in the heart of The Guardian newsroom in London. The Behind the Headlines team opens up the world of news for pupils with a range of hands-on workshops to choose from, including opinion writing, making a newspaper and writing for the web.
The programme links to the media studies curriculum and helps learners to demonstrate skills of enquiry, critical thinking, decision-making and analysis, along with the chance to develop a critical understanding of the media’s role, both historically and currently in society.
2. Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter
The Hertfordshire-based attraction, home to the iconic sets, props, costumes and special effects that created the Harry Potter film series, offers lessons and workshops covering various subjects, including film and media. Designed to meet KS2 - 5 learning objectives, the film and media workshops use the costumes, props and models to teach the secrets of film making.
Five different film and media lessons are available, Costume Characterisation, Script to Screen, Camera Choices, Storyboarding and Mise-en-Scène, covering various elements of film production. Post-visit tasks push pupils to further develop and discuss the skills they have learned at the studio tour and workshops.
3. Madame Tussauds
The London attraction offers workshops for Key Stage 2 and 3 groups, focusing on media and news.
A visit will ask learners to consider the term ‘fake news’, what it means and what different types of fake news there are. Tasks include analysing news stories about one or more of the celebrities in the attraction and assessing whether they think it is real or fake, picking out evidence to back up their decisions.
Pupils will also write either a fake or a real headline about a recent election in the style of a newspaper headline and swap it with other members of the class, to work out who the best is at spotting the fake news.
4. Etihad Stadium
Manchester City Football Club offers educational stadium tour experiences to highlight the need for media in professional football. Match Report is a stadium tour experience for Key Stages 2-4 that recreates the excitement of a football match so pupils can take the role of a journalist in the interview areas.
Students will take a tour of the stadium, focusing on the role of the media on a match day. Using a range of questioning techniques, each learner will prepare questions and answers related to moments in the match they have just watched and then interview each other where the real players are interviewed post-match.
5. Sky Studios - Sky Up Academy
Sky offers a behind-the-scenes studio experience, diving into the world of film and TV using state-of-the-art studios and technology to develop creativity and communication skills.
Academy Studios is an immersive learning session for groups of up to 32 students, giving them the opportunity to use the digital technology at Sky’s TV studios to create their own content. The group takes on responsibilities of a media team and creates a news report or trailer with the help of experts.
6. British Music Experience
Based in Liverpool, the British Music Experience’s Pop Culture workshop focuses on how music has soundtracked and shaped modern British history from 1945 to the present day.
The interactive workshop and guided tour highlights the roles that broadcast and print media have played in chronicling and showcasing the key events and cultural icons of the last 80 years.
In addition, the galleries include live stage shows using holographic projections, light shows and sound. Visitors can also visit the interactive dance and music studios, along with a vocal booth.
7. National Science and Media Museum
Schools visiting the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford can include the Kodak Gallery during their visit which uncovers the story of photography, from the earliest cameras to the digital photographs of today.
In the summer the museum is launching two new permanent Sound and Vision galleries which will showcase key objects and stories from the museum’s collection of photography, film, television, animation, video games and sound technologies.
