Media
Back to Subjects MenuWhat is the Intent of the Media Curriculum?
At The Marsh Academy, the Media curriculum is ambitious, knowledge-rich and inclusive. We believe that every student should leave school able to engage with media products in a critical way, equipped with the knowledge, skills and cultural understanding to be able to both create their own products and content responsibly, and to be able to interrogate what is presented to them in everyday life. It also creates a firm foundation should students wish to take their studies in Media further, at Higher Education or in employment within the media sector.
Our curriculum is carefully designed and sequenced to develop engagement with media texts of all types, while applying key critical theories to their work. Students will study advertising, film marketing, magazines, crime drama, video games, newspapers, radio, music videos and online participatory media and gain confidence in dealing with and challenging problematic representations in the media.
We believe that the media, both mainstream and alternative, is now such an entrenched part of life, that all students need a high level of media literacy to be able to navigate the world around them. Students encounter a wide range of formats, creators and personas to reflect the diverse world around them.
Creativity is encouraged through practical elements of all units. 30% of the final grade at both KS4 and KS5 is based on Non-Exam Assessment, so practice in working to a brief and with hardware and software is key, not only to prepare them for their summative assessments at GCSE and A Level, but to prepare them for a possible career in the media industry.
The curriculum is built upon high expectations for every student. Media is an analytical subject as well as a creative one, so theories and key vocabulary are explicitly taught, revisited and connected to embed the ideas and enable them to make sophisticated links between contexts, ideas and concepts.
Rationale
The Media curriculum has been mapped to ensure that key theories and skills are introduced, revisited and deepened over time. Learning is carefully sequenced so that students progressively apply their knowledge and critical thinking to more complex media forms.
Throughout the Media course, a range of texts are studied, including lifestyle magazines, action film marketing, contemporary and modern crime dramas. Alongside these texts, the student study social, political, historical and cultural contexts, deepening an understanding of how context underpins the circumstance of a product. By engaging with ideas such as context, it allows the students to think critically about the media they encounter day to day.
The fundamental elements of the course are analysis and creativity. The theoretical framework of Language, Representation, Industry and Audience means that students analyse the form but also gain an understanding of media processes and key elements of production, distribution and promotion. Key vocabulary is explicitly taught and revisited.
Knowledge is sequenced to give the best opportunities for building skills. At the beginning of both KS4 and KS5 courses are an introduction to the theoretical framework, which includes key theories and ideas that students must grasp. Students will then study media formats, each one progressively more complex with multiple possible readings. The courses are also structured so that students gain exposure to and practice in as many media formats as possible. This is so that they can choose a brief for Non-Exam Assessment with confidence and take pleasure and pride in the media they create.
