Staff and pupils at Cranford Community College wanted to create a film that could be used to promote the school'a achievements and to mark their presence in the local area as a place with an exciting learning environment full with aspirations. Sport, music and drama are amongst the key strengths of the school so ‘Message to the World’aim to celebrate just that in the build-up to the London 2012 Olympics.

The creation of a new school song was led by the music department in conjunction with the Many Voices Project. Students in 3 year 7 tutor groups worked on writing a new school song and the 3 songs were performed at a Multi faith event. From there on, one of the songs was chosen and developed further to represent Cranford Community College and was used in the new school video. The ‘Message to the World’ project was guided by Simon Dean, Assistant Headteacher but the strength of the project was that it was driven by a group of students who had been through a school application process in order to be involved.

Learning new skills

Another aim of the project was for students to learn new skills such as story boarding, filming, editing and further develop their ability to work as a team. It was also felt that they would be able to use and develop their creative skills throughout the whole project with ideas and actions being put into practical use.

 

Working with Antonio from Storymakers TV was inspirational for everyone. Not only was he fantastic with ideas for the filming but he was able to develop an excellent working relationship with staff and students which allowed everyone the confidence to offer ideas. . It was particularly enjoyable to see the students being given key roles during the filming and editing and learning so much. Without doubt, we could not have created such a fantastic video without the help, expertise and hard work of a man we all now call our friend.

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Simon Dean - Assistant Headteacher
Cranford Community College