Providing opportunities for young people to develop and perform their artistic and creative aspirations, such as writing poetry or lyrics and linking music with dance.

The radio club’s starting has given the young people of Barrow a platform to be creative in an environment that they wouldn’t normally think of. The radio clubs lets the Students be creative without even realising that they are, building up the creative skills and mindsets while being a part of a fun and different club than what they are used to. We encourage the pupils to be adventurous with the content that they want to put on the show. This can range from

Scripts

Creative edits

Interview styles and techniques

The Youth radio clubs offer an alternative creative opportunity to the students that they wouldn’t get in school.

 “Schools in England face a “creativity crisis” with the number of creative arts students and teachers down by as much as a fifth in some subjects after a decade of underinvestment” (The Guardian, 2021)

With the cuts happening in the schools, the program is already oversubscribed. Both with schools and pupils alike.

Character Interview game

The premis

A staff member takes a student out of the classroom, together they come up with a character and a back story. Some good ideas for characters are.

A cowboy who has lost his lasso in a bar

A killer clown that has ran away from the circus after using poison cream pies

Woman who turns into a bat every time she sees sunlight.

The idea of letting the students come up with the characters helps them become more creative. Once the character is discussed they can then come back into the room. The rest of the class have two questions each (or three if they get excited) to find out all the key information about the character’s life.

The reason that there are only two questions is to really make the students think about what they are asking. In a radio environment sometimes you only get 2 mins with an interviewee so the questions need to be to the point .

The game is there to really improve the questions being asked, For the dropzone project the students went from asking closed questions to open questions very quickly.

This activity is a fun 30 min one to get the session started.

Training the next crop of students.

With the Primary school radio clubs, the pupils eventually have to progress into secondary school. Obviously leaving the school means that they will leave the radio club. Before they leave the idea is that they future proof the radio club, meaning that come September there should be no issues with a handover from the old year 6’s to the new ones.

The idea is to start getting the year 5’s to join the club and have a “Try out” this will happen over around 2 months. This makes the radio clubs 3 new members and 3 old. While the “try out” is happening the training is also taking place. This will be basic training that will include.

Looking at the radio clock and talking through how it works

How to write a radio script about whatever topic is needed

How to write a generic script

Planning and joining in with the Quiz

And fun ice breaker games.

Both myself and a teacher will be there supervising to make sure that they are getting along and to make sure everyone is happy.

By doing it this way. We get to see what the children have learned themselves by what they pass on. It also helps demonstrate good communication skills to be able to pass the knowledge on and confidence to feel like they have the ability to “train up” the next cohort of the radio group in their school. Something that some of the pupils wouldn’t have had before joining the radio club.

Gaining Confidence

When starting out the children can be quite nervous, this is when we have some fun with some scripts. An example of the script is,

That was fabulous …….. With the local music for this hour. If you liked the sound of that, remember we have a full hour of local music here at 7pm tonight. Also if you are local and think of yourself as a good musician then please get in contact with us. The email address is contact at cando fm dot co dot uk. Playing now is ….. With ….. On the st pius takeover.

After a few weeks I try to get the pupils to stop relying on the already written content and to start writing their own. I do this for two reasons.

It helps the the students be more creative with what they are trying to say

There seems to be a massive improvement in both delivery and confidence when reading their own work.

When some of the pupils struggle with confidence to begin with, I like to play the “quiet, loud, funny” game with them. This is a good technique to get the students to learn the script in an entertaining way. I start off by asking them to whisper it, and i keep saying “quiter” until i can hardly hear them. Then we go LOUD and BOOMING. While this is happening I’m shouting “louder” until they get really loud. Then read it in a funny voice. This only takes about 5 minutes, and lets the student come out of their shell