A Voyage of Discovery for Claires Court Senior Boys

Budding student reporters from Claires Court Senior Boys, Maidenhead spent the day exploring television production and learning how to create attention-grabbing news stories at Discovery Communications headquarters in London.

Student Oli, who hopes to be part of the documentary film industry in the future, was particularly excited – “The best bit for me was hearing from the producer who told us the story of how he got where he is today. That was really inspiring!”

The day was organised by Discovery Education who are working closely with Claires Court, developing their student digital mentors who will support both their teachers and younger students as they start using Discovery Education Secondary. This is a brand new digital learning service that offers secondary teachers easy-to-use, engaging digital content across a wide range of subject areas. It is designed to empower teachers and inspire students to reach their full potential. As part of the 2015 launch we will be training students to be champions within their school.

Christine Major, Director of Professional Development at Discovery Education said – “When we found out that the students wanted to share the story of being digital mentors for our new Secondary service through their entry to a national school news report campaign, we saw a chance for the students to come and have a unique learning experience with us.”

The ten students, along with three staff, were thrilled to visit the media centre where they saw what goes into producing and broadcasting 120+ channels in a variety of languages across Europe. They heard from television producer Rob Holloway before learning more about how Discovery Education harnesses the power of documentary video content to inspire students’ learning across the secondary curriculum. After spending some time understanding how Discovery Education creates engaging and relevant news bulletins for secondary school students, the students began work creating their own news reports.

James Wilding, Academic Principal at Claires Court summed up the day – “This real-world learning experience helped our students appreciate the need to take a clear, planned approach to their news report. They captured the essence of video story-telling so back at school they can fully develop their own engaging news bulletins.”

“We are so pleased to be able to support our partner Claires Court, helping their students develop new skills.” – said Chris Davison, School Partnerships Manager at Discovery Education – “We can’t wait to see their final news report!”