The TV studio at Burwell House provides a fantastic environment to develop literacy, computing and drama skills. It also encourages teamwork, with groups of children in the technical and presentation side of the broadcast having to use all of their teamwork skills in order to successfully produce a programme.

Pre-visit preparation – at school

Watch some news broadcasts

  • Look at the different features found within news programmes. (reports, interviews, breaking news, sports reports, weather news, local news etc)
  • Consider the style and language used.
  • Note the different ‘characters’ involved.
Consider group sizes and dynamics

The number of children within your total group will determine the number of groups you are likely to work in. Broadly speaking:

  • 24 or less2 working groups (visit will last approximately 4 hours)
  • 25 – 36*3 working groups (visit will last approximately 6 hours)

*please note – for groups of between 25 and 30, it is still possible to manage a 4 hour visit, but the school will need to bring a camera, and a video device (e.g. – an iPad) in order for there to be an appropriate number of technical jobs.

Whatever the group size, please ensure you have a discussion with a member of the Burwell House teaching staff before embarking on your scriptwriting.

Decide upon the theme of the broadcast

News or magazine style programmes are by far the most successful due to constraints of time and equipment. The programme could be a ‘standard’ news broadcast covering things such international national & local news, sports, interviews (pairs of children working together), entertainment news and a weather forecast.

Alternatively the news broadcast could link to topics the children are covering in other subjects back at school. Successful previous programmes include alternative fairy tales, The Iron Man, Harry Potter, Victorians, an Environmental Disaster, the Christmas Story and World War 2.

If you would like your programme / script to be different to the typical news broadcast style this can be arranged - it is possible to have other studio-based format shows. A historical Dragon’s Den could work well (…..“here’s my new Roman invention – straight roads”) and an X factor style talent show might also be possible. However it is important that you contact Burwell House some weeks before your visit to discuss this further and to ensure that the script will work in our TV Studio setting.

Writing the news broadcast

A few important pointers.

  • Each total program time should be no longer than 8 minutes.
  • The Anchor person / people will generally appear at the start and end of the programme. It is also possible for them to speak in between reports or sections but they don’t need to appear between every section, and if they do appear it’s better if they say more than just “thankyou – and now it’s over to….”
  • Linking sentences must be included at the beginning and end of each section to introduce/thank the next person speaking.
  • Every child in each group should be involved, through having their own report or being part of an interview.
  • It is better to use a child’s real name if they are a reporter as this will help in the studio when filming.
  • There are 3 cameras in use during a show, and the running order of the show needs to ensure that all cameras are used. 2 are ‘studio’ cameras – with a plain curtain background, and the other is a ‘greenscreen’ camera (see below). Do use the suggested formats on the next page to help sort out the running order.
  • Children sometimes want to draw pictures etc to be included in the broadcast, however these are rarely effective as much of the finer detail gets lost on camera.
  • Whilst it is a good idea to have all the reports compiled into 1 typed script, each child will need to have their own copy rather than sharing pieces of paper between them.

Getting it checked

To add to the authenticity of the broadcast experience, you may wish to email the show’s ’producer’ to get some feedback on the scripts before visiting the Centre. If documents are emailed to in the weeks before the visit, then our education team will be able to provide some feedback to help your scriptwriting.

Using the greenscreen

At the Centre, the group will have the opportunity to have number of different background images, utilisinggreenscreen technology. With this, we can project images of whatever is required onto the background of individuals so, for example, students could interview a ‘native dweller’ in a Brazilian rainforest, an astronaut on the moon or a teacher in a classroom from your school.

If you let us know any generic images you might want in the background (e.g. – football stadium, woodland, volcano) in the weeks before the visit, then we can prepare a selection of suitable backgrounds.If you have very specific requests for very specific images (e.g. images of your school) then you’ll need toemail these images to us before the visit itself, using the same email address… . Any pictures you use will need to be relatively good quality, be landscape in orientation and will need sending in jpeg format (not as part of a word or powerpoint document).

Please note: you cannot have greenscreen images being used in consecutive shots / reports. For an example of when the greenscreen might be used with differing group sizes, please refer to the appendix at the end of this document.

Weather forecasts

If you wish to do weather forecasts using the greenscreen, then this is possible. We have created 2 different downloadable weather maps of the UK which can be used to plan the scripts in order that the scripts match the weather shown on the map.

Choosing technical jobs

In addition to writing the scripts, thought needs to be given as to which technical job each child in each group is to be doing. A downloadable ‘person specification’ explains the skills required for each job, and a list should be brought with you on the day.

Practicing at school

There will be rehearsal time at the Centre but many schools like to do some rehearsing at school before the visit. If you are doing this, it’s worth knowing that:

  • When one report / section hands over to another, it is worth adding a 3 second pause before the next person speaks.
  • Try to practice looking up at an imaginary camera whilst talking.
  • Don’t worry about seating positions – the TV tutor (producer) will organise this on the day.

At Burwell House

Upon arrival, and after a brief introduction to the Centre (toilets, fire procedure etc) the group will enter into the TV studio. An initial introduction to the studio will cover health and safety issues, expectations of behaviour (which will need to be of a high standard) and a guide as to the structure of the day.

Then we will launch into the programme making, with each ‘session’ broadly being split into 3 parts.

  1. Set up (approx 20 minutes). The producer of the show will organise who is sitting where and who is doing which job, and get everyone into their correct positions
  2. Rehearsal (approx 50 minutes). This is a chance for technical and presentation teams to practice their jobs.
  3. Recording (approx 10 minutes). This will be done in 1 take.

During the entire session our TV studio tutor will coordinate and lead the activity but will require assistance from at least 1, and preferably 2 or more members of school staff.

Afterwards

Once all programmes are completed, they will be recorded onto a USB memory stick and 1 copy of this given to the school before you leave.

Suggested order of reports & interviews for different sized groups

The programmes don’t need to be written in exactly this format, but whatever running order is chosen please ensure that

1)You don’t use consecutive greenscreen (GS) shots

2)There are 3 cameras required (don’t just go from greenscreen to anchor, to greenscreen to anchor repeatedly!

7 Children
(Children read reports individually)
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 2 News report 1 (GS)*
Cam 3 News report 2
Cam 2 News report 3 (GS)*
Cam 1 News report 4
Cam 2 News report/Sports report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 2 Weather report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor / 8 Children
(Children read reports individually)
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 2 News report 1 (GS)*
Cam 3 News report 2
Cam 2 Interview (GS)*
Cam 1 News report 3
Cam 2 News report / Sports report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 2 Weather report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor
9 Children
(Children read reports individually)
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 3 News report 1
Cam 2 Interview 1 (GS)*
Cam 1 News report 2
Cam 3 Interview 2
Cam 1 News report / Sports report
Cam 2 Weather report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor / 10 Children
(Pair children for some interviews and reports)
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 3News report 1
Cam 2 Interview 1 (GS)*
Cam 1 News report 2
Cam 2 News report / Sports report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 2 Weather report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor
11 Children
(Pair children for most interviews & reports)
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 3 News report 1
Cam 2 Interview 1 (GS)*
Cam 1 News report 2
Cam 3 Interview 2
Cam 1 News report / Sports report
Cam 2 Weather report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor / 12/13/14/15 children
(Pair children for most interviews & reports)
Cam 1 Anchors
Cam 3 News report 1
Cam 2 Interview 1 (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchors
Cam 2 News report 3 (GS)*
Cam 3 Interview 2
Cam 2 News report/Sports report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor
Cam 2 Weather report (GS)*
Cam 1 Anchor