The Media Department

The media is all around us. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As audiences we consistently use media and communication, whether this is sending an email, watching videos on YouTube, or settling down with a bag of popcorn at your local multiplex. As a media student, you will analyse the relationships between audience and text, as well as creating your own products which show you understand how existing media communicates.

Media studies is all about communication and the course is designed to develop the skills of an independent and enquiring student through analysis and creativity.

Year 10
Autumn Term – Students will have the opportunity for a brief introduction to some of the key concepts which will be covered over the course of the two years. A practical task on continuity editing will introduce the concept of practical work and give students confidence when working with media production later during this term. Following on from this, students will begin work on the first of the coursework units, on the topic of video games. Candidates are asked to produce an essay investigating the representation of gender in video games, and will then produce a practical piece based on this work.
Spring Term – The focus will be theoretical, investigating and analysing action adventure movies for the use of technical codes and conventions. Practice questions will be used to assess student progress throughout the topic. The last few weeks of this term will be used to start the second coursework unit, which is an opportunity for students to develop their practical skills further.
Summer Term – The coursework started last term will be continued. At the end of this unit, students will be able to select the coursework piece with the highest mark to be carried forward to their final assessment portfolio.

Year 11
Autumn Term – Students will spend this term completing coursework folders, including finalising pieces that were begun during Year 10. Folders will contain 4 pieces of coursework when completed: music video storyboard and essay, comparison of adverts essay and a mock up for an ad campaign, an analysis of a film trailer and poster and mock ups for a film advertising campaign and a completed magazine and evaluation.
Spring Term – The topic for this term is the popular press and will focus on preparing students for the summer examination, worth 50% of the overall GCSE grade. Students will focus on case studies of newspapers and magazines, looking at real world examples of texts in relation to their audience and the institution that own them as well content. Students will sit a mock exam towards the end of this term.
Summer Term – Students will sit the exam very early in May, so the time will be spent working with pre-release material from the exam board. Students will have the opportunity to see the exam paper and prepare some of their answers, which they can then revise from at home. Once the pre-release material is given to students, no teaching is allowed to take place.

Year 12
Autumn Term – Begins with an induction unit which introduces the key concepts within the subject. Students will complete an assignment which requires them to analyse a moving image sequence from an action movie and then produce a 750 word essay. This is used to help establish where students need support and additional coaching, as well as enabling them to experience the requirements of an analytical media essay. A practical task follows this, where students are introduced to production skills. Students then move on to creating 4 pages of a new music magazine, which they plan, produce and evaluate. This is the coursework unit and forms 50% of the AS grade.
Spring Term – Coursework is completed and evaluated. Unit 2 of the course begins with revisiting some of the key concepts and media language. Students will watch a number of television drama series, with a view to understanding how technical codes are used by the director represent age, class, gender and ethnicity. This will be tested as an unseen extract in the examination where students will respond in an essay question. Students will also be prepared to answer the second examination question, which examines the computer game industry.
Summer Term – Students spend some time ensuring their coursework is ready for final assessment. The remainder of the term will be spent on examination practice and revision.

Year 13
Autumn Term – Focuses on the production of A2 coursework. This involves the production of a viral marketing campaign for a new film entitled “The Watcher”. Students must create a teaser trailer, website homepage and film poster to publicise the release of the film. The portfolio of evidence is created online using the media department’s blogging site www.elymediastudies.com which students can use both at home and in school to upload content. Planning stages will run up until half term: after this time students will be filming, editing and uploading their work. Work will be completed at the beginning of December in preparation for the Shooting Star Awards.
For the last 2 weeks of term, students will be revising the Key Concepts topic for the January resits.
Spring Term – Students will begin preparing for the examination in the summer, and the term is divided into 2 topics. Topic One deals with the representations of Britishness in film and television soap opera. Students will be covering a wide range of British films including Layer Cake, This is England and Notting Hill. This unit will be assessed by an essay question in the exam and students will practice exam style questions throughout the unit. Topic Two focuses on the students own practical work, encouraging them to consider how their work can be placed in the context of the wider media and how they have developed from the AS coursework to that of the A2. Students that wish to resit AS coursework must do so by the end of this term.
Summer Term - Students will spend the first week making any final preparations and improvements to their coursework in time for moderation by teaching staff. Students will then have revision sessions for both A2 examination questions, as well as the opportunity for a further AS resit should this be required.