Update on process so far

Mise en scene

The costume for our documentary was very important. I star in the documentary however I only ever introduce the venue we are at or I am interviewing and am not seen therefore we didn't feel my attire was extremely important. However the people who star in our documentary that we have interviewed, are all wearing the correct attire. The private school students are all wearing suits, the 5th year pupils from a state school are wearing uniform and the sixth form pupils from a state school are wearing their own clothing which outlines one of the differences we cover about uniform. It all works really nicely throughout our documentary, I believe it was important to consider the importance of uniform.

Engaging our target audience

We believed our documentary could appeal to all ages. It is a subject in which would interest both children and adults. We include interviews with pupils as well as teachers so we get opinions and views of all ages. For our individual task we are creating a poster where we can advertise our documentary so this will attract a lot of attention if we go about it in the right way.

Also this idea that because our documentary is appealing to all ages, there is no restriction on who can watch it, therefore there is no worry for parents for instance about letting their child watch it. If anything it is educational.

I believe many people would be curious to see how our documentary portrays both a state and a private school so therefore this would be a big attraction for developing a larger audience.

Target Audience

Educating Essex

The first programme of the series joins Passmores School's deputy head Mr Drew on the front line of school discipline.

Dealing with emotional teenagers, enforcing detentions and maintaining the school's high standards - as well as teaching history - is all in a day's work for Mr Drew. Some love him, others love to hate him.

It's the last few days of term before Christmas and Mr Drew has more to contend with than a few snowballs in the playground. When a row over school uniform escalates, an accusation from a pupil threatens to derail his entire career.

SERIES SYNOPSIS

What is life really like for today's students and teachers? This series has unprecedented access to an English secondary school to follow a group of GCSE students, and the staff who teach them, as they face the most important year in their education.

Passmores School in Harlow, Essex, is a successful school in a challenging area. Under headteacher Vic Goddard, it's been awarded Academy status and is rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted.

The school has been rigged with 65 fixed cameras - from the corridors to the canteen, and from the headteacher's office to the detention hall - to reveal every detail of daily life.

I found it was important to watch documentaries that relate to our final piece as we can take bits that work well to develop our work. We are in the process of editing so watching documentaries such as these help, even if they are small things, it just helps to get those extra ideas.

Archive footage

To make our documentary more interesting and appealing to others we are going to include some archive footage. After doing some research we came across some really great footage that relates really nicely in to our documentary. We feel that including this footage will allow our documentary to have that extra something, it is always good to hear some other opinions on the same kind of topic rather. I feel this will give our audience more to talk about and when it comes to feedback, hopefully we will get some positive stuff!

Our day at Reeds

The facilities at reeds school

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Our day filming at Reeds School

Due to our change of plan, Adam, Nick and I took the day to film at Reeds School. This was a very successful day of filming as we captured everything we needed in order to make our documentary as successful as it possibly could be.
We got to Reeds for 10am where we were introduced to Mr Michael who had kindly arranged the day for us. We met one of the sports coaches who was more than helpful. It was great talking to him as he like myself has experienced both life at a state school and a private school. He took us around the sports department and showed us the sporting facilities which we found was one of the main differences between state and private school.
We were also allowed to sit in on a history lesson which was great as we got a real feel for their ways of teaching and the ways in which the children responded and got involved in lessons. All the children were very well behaved and took part in the lesson activities. They had a friendly and practical approach to teaching which was apparent the children enjoyed very much.
We sat in on a gym session as well as two students playing tennis. This was great as it in our documentary their is a clear contrast in the facilities.
Speaking to the sports coach whom had attended both private and state schools was very interesting, his view was that he feels you get what you pay for when you come to a private school, the sporting facilities and matches that take place in every sport at the weekends, the top athletes get one on one sessions with coaches which was a real benefit. However if students are determined to succeed they can do just as well at a public school if they are motivated to do so. I very much believe this is the case. From being at St Georges, I was very privileged to enjoy such wonderful facilities however now being at Heathside, I feel that as an individual student I have improved the way I work, I am much more independent in my studies which I feel is also another big comparison between the two. I feel at private schools, you are chased to do your work where as at a public school it is much more independant. This could be seen as good or bad from different perspectives, however it has to be considered that later in life when you are put in to the deep end or in later education at university, the majority of the work is off of your own back and you are forced to be independent.
At Reeds, we also got a chance to have some one on one interviews with the students of the sixth form, they seemed to love where they were and what they were doing. Another difference between a state and private school was the way in which in free periods the students at a private school are made to study where as public schools have the choice to study or go out in their free periods. Again, this comes back to the independence and motivation of you as an individual.
I very much enjoyed our day filming at Reeds, it gave us a  much clearer insight in to what the real differences were.
Over half term our group needs to edit our final outcome together to produce the best possible result for our documentary.

Above are some of Reeds GCSE results from previous years, these will be something which we include in our documentary to highlight some of the key differences.