Why Study Media?

It’s been said that media literacy is as important to living in the 21st century as regular literacy was to the 20th century.

The sheer amount of time spent with film and television is impressive enough to forestall the need for conjuring up fear-filled threats about the effects of the new media. The consumers are there already. The images touch on their political and economic deicisions; they comment incessantly on the very style and meaning of what it means to be human. Intelligent and critical consumers are likely to end up as the best kinds of humans.

KS4: GCSE Media Studies (OCR)

Live video on your mobile phone, watching TV shows when you decide and having conversations with people thousands of miles away. We live in a media-saturated world, messages surround us for most of our waking hours. How do we make sense of them all? How do you know what they are trying to communicate? Do these messages reflect or shape our reality?

This course will consider these questions and others as students are introduced to concepts of close textual analysis, a variety of media forms and current media debates.

Students also experience creating media products throughout the course allowing them to express how they have understood the content.

KS5: A Level Media Studies (OCR)

The changing face of the new media landscape has dramatically altered young people’s lives as we know it. The OCR specification is organised in way that students are able to form opinions about contemporary media products and how they reflect and shape the society that they live in. The practical production element of the course is where students are assessed through the construction of a creative piece of work. This allows for a level of self-expression far different from other courses at this level.

KS5: A Level Film Studies (WJEC)

At their best, films communicate valid and significant human experiences that illuminate our common humanity. The power of the moving image to manipulate, to editorialize and to form values and attitudes makes it imperative in this age of film and television that the audience be equipped with the competence needed to understand the rhetoric of the projected image. The WJEC syllabus allows students to begin this process through the variety of cinema it exposes students to.

Enrichment activities at DGSB

In the sixth form, we have recently introduced a film club which focusses on topical films in association with A Level Sociology and Psychology courses.

A short-film production club allows all students, including those who do not study media or film, to engage in the creativity of film production.

A regular programme of trips and visiting speakers supports the Film and Media department. Every year students attend a National Schools Film Week free screening in October with the possibility of further cinema visits throughout the year. All A Level students get the opportunity to meet and discuss the work of examiners from the British Board of Film Classification.

Future Pathways

At University students are able to follow practical production pathways that allow them to explore new technology and use it creatively. However the option is also there to study film and media in a more strict academic sense. Both forms of study equip students with a wealth of skills, experience and knowledge, making them incredibly employable in a range of industries.