Northern Grid for Learning - School Broadband, eSafety, Learning Resources and More

Tuned In! won the PSHE Secondary Award at the Northern Grid ICT in Education Awards 2011.

Tuned In! is a local authority wide project involving students from a number of secondary schools across the Borough of Redcar and Cleveland.

Project Outline

One Saturday morning in March 2008 a group of 20 young people from various Redcar and Cleveland schools gathered at the Evening Gazette Education office in Middlesbrough. The objective was to create a publication written “by young people, for young people” in Redcar and Cleveland. This idea had come about as a result of a consultation exercise with 1500 young people to help us produce our local “Youth Offer” One thing that young people had clearly stated was that they wanted somewhere they could make their views known and read about what others thought.

During the process of producing the first publication the young people came up with a name for it “Tuned In!” This name took off and has now become the brand for 13 – 19 year olds in Redcar and Cleveland. Visit www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/tunedin

Two publications were produced at the Gazette media office in 2008. Unfortunately at the end of 2008 the media office closed. Not to be deterred the publication moved to the City Learning Centre in Eston, switched to magazine format and utilised the magazine industry standard software “In Design” which had been installed on the computers at the CLC. Two magazines a year were produced until the final one in December 2010. The PDF for this publication is attached to this case study. At this point it was decided that the publication had done its job and that attention should now focus on the Tuned In! website. Everything that was in the magazine…articles, competitions, reviews etc. will be published on the website instead and young people are still involved in producing the content.

We have had a regular editorial group of 15 – 20 right through since 2008 and the membership has naturally ebbed and flowed as one might expect. In addition we have done a lot of outreach in special schools and those schools not represented on the core group. More than 150 young people have been involved at different times in producing content.

This process offered the opportunity for the development of literacy and journalism skills and opened up career opportunities. A number of those involved in the early publications have followed that as a career path.

Challenges

There have been a number:

• Recruiting young people and ensuring an inclusive approach. Doing a borough wide publication means young people mixing with others from other schools, leaving their own environment and comfort zone.
  
  
• Ensuring this didn't just turn into a gifted and talented exercise. Ensuring that the voices of all young people would be heard through the publication.
  
  
• Getting schools and colleges to understand and buy in.
  
  
• Likewise the local authority.
  
  
• There was an overall cost of around 60k for the publications, the website and everything associated.

Benefits

As well as producing a publication using the Evening Gazette Tera newspaper design software a further objective was to give the young people hands on experience in a journalism environment, working with a teacher with a background in journalism. The young people would develop a plan for what the publication would contain and then source / write the articles. They would then spend 2 further Saturdays putting the publication together.

A third objective was to highlight the achievements of young people and the positive contribution they make to their communities.

It also helped the LA fulfil a statutory obligation under the 2006 Education and Inspections act to ensure good quality, accessible information for the 13 – 19 age group.

Advice to other schools and teachers planning to do a similar project

Truthfully this project could only have been coordinated through the Local Authority. Funding issues would make it highly unlikely to happen anywhere else in the foreseeable future.

What next

Tuned In! has become the place for young people to go to for information, advice and support. Although after 6 publications it was decided to focus on the website, this has allowed more time to focus on improving the website. A further and critical dimension is the new Tuned In!@myplace development which will open in the spring of 2012. This will be a £5m world class arts and media centre for 13 -19 year olds and will be the physical embodiment of the Tuned In! brand and all that goes with it.

Why did you enter this project for the Northern Grid awards?

We are proud of Tuned In!. We have looked at every other local authority and there are very few equivalents and not many as good.

For further information have a look at the Tuned In! website: www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/tunedin

Download this Case Study