About
Gaining Ground was a two-year action research project developed by The Rural Media Company, that provided a rolling programme of practical media workshops for excluded pupils and professional development of teaching staff at Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) in Herefordshire.
The purpose of the project was:
- To bring a fresh and sustained creative approach to engaging disaffected young people in Herefordshire who find themselves excluded from mainstream education
- To establish a model for practical media education for disaffected young people based in Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) settings
- To contribute to good practice and policy development concerning practical media education in PRU settings
The approach was to trial two linked models:
- Practical creative media activity timetabled throughout two school years in one PRU, The Aconbury Centre, supported by In Service Training (Inset)
- Media Inset training and practical support to two other PRUs, St David’s and The Priory, over the same two year period. The pupils at Aconbury were two consecutive Year 9 groups.
The pupils in the other two PRUs were in Year 10. It was therefore possible for some pupils to work with RMC at Aconbury in Year One, and then develop their skills at St David’s or The Priory in Year Two.
Six modules ran in Year One: Digital Stories; Film Making; Digital Music; Journalism; Web Design; Animation. In Year Two, the following six modules were taught: Film Making, Digital Stories, Digital Music, Photography and Journalism, Animation, Mixed Media – Film and Photography for the web and for evaluation purposes.
Supported by:
