The Joseph Rowntree School

KS4 - Media Studies

 Curriculum Knowledge

Year 10

Students begin by learning the key theoretical framework for Media, beginning with Language, Representation, Audience and Industries in the first term. We will then move onto applying these frameworks to print products, starting with advertising and marketing products such as Quality Street and This Girl Can, moving onto film posters such as The Man with the Golden Gun and Spectre where we focus on gender representation and the shift in social and cultural contexts, before analysing the magazine covers of Pride and GQ.
Later on in the year, we move onto more participatory media forms, looking at representation in TV programs The IT Crowd and Friends and studying the potential effects video games can have on audiences by studying Fortnite.
We finish the year by consolidating the content learnt by applying it to a NEA product. Students will study the briefs set and begin preliminary research and planning into their coursework. This will be continued later on in Year 11. 

 

Year 11

We will begin the year with students undertaking retrieval practice for all four frameworks, consolidating knowledge from Y10. This forms a basis for the key and more detailed CSPs. We will begin with an analysis of The Guardian and The Sun newspapers, looking at the difference between tabloids and broadsheets, their political coverage and their different approaches to reporting the news. We then move onto the world’s longest running radio drama, The Archers, before studying a range of music videos from the 80s and 90s, such as TLC Waterfalls, to more contemporary music videos such as Taylor Swift, Bad Blood and Justin Bieber, Intentions. Here we will look at the relationship between audience and producer and study how music videos play a large role in how musicians represent and market themselves. 

We will then continue with the NEA, where students have the opportunity to apply and develop their knowledge and understanding of media language and representation in relation to media products, and become creators of meaning themselves. Students will be offered a choice of briefs and forms within which to work, enabling them to explore and pursue their own media interests.
Students may have the opportunity to: create a sequence from a new television programme or a website to promote a new television programme, create a music video or a website to promote a new artist/band, produce print-based marketing material for a new film or create a new print or online magazine.

 

Skill Development

 

Subject Specific Skills:

  • Applying theory and media approaches to content
  • Analysing the set products in relation to the theoretical framework (language, audience, institution, representation)
  • Using subject specific terminology
  • Analysing own media consumption
  • Critically analysing unseen media products
  • Consider different audience responses
  • Developing practical skills through either filming, producing print-based marketing materials or by designing and creating a website

 

Wider Academic Skills / Attributes

  • Promotes independent and group study
  • Confidence becomes a skill used in the lesson and across individual tasks
  • The learning environment is inclusive, where students are asked to take part in class discussions and debate contemporary issues
  • Students will be set independent research tasks, usually online
  • Students are encouraged to improve their literacy skills in the form of essay writing and the spelling of key terminology
  • The course leads to a developing awareness of both current and historical, social, cultural and political contexts

 

Personal Development - SMSC & Cultural Capital (Opportunities / Experiences)

 

  • Students gain confidence of different cultures from across the world using Media as a platform of understanding
  • We discuss and debunk a range of different stereotypes and media portrayals in a mature and considerate manner
  • Talks and visits from outside companies and professional
  • Work experience in a professional field
  • School events and visits
  • Encouraging students to take part in the Guild of Media Arts for students aged 13-16
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