A Factual Feature on the importance of education social behaviour at a primary level
Background
How important is the development of emotions and behaviour skills for young children? Many people would agree that it is important, however many people actively involved within the education system support the concept of teaching the idea in schools.
Government programs such as SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) have proven as failed attempts in the past to incorporate the teachings of social behaviour skills in education institutes. Studies show that the un-willingness of parents wishing their children to be involved was one of the major problems.
Findings such as Getting in Early have quoted figures that in some parts of the UK, school children don’t have the necessary emotional skills. They discovered through observing the children in primary education that almost half of them started school lacking the communication skills needed for learning.
The fifteen minute long narrator led factual feature for radio broadcast will explore the concept of teaching social behaviour in primary education. This will be achieved by using an open view to discuss the importance and relevance, and different opinions in regards to incorporating this into education as a compulsory academic subject.
Aims and objectives
- Contact a local school, perhaps Nettleham C of E Aided Junior School, and contact Head Teacher David Gibbons (Hons) PGCE.
- Interview parents and children.
- Contact a psychology expert/lecturer.
- Contact a children’s therapist.
- Contact the Lincolnshire County Council, and talk to someone involved with the School Admissions department.
- Contact Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU).
- Provide listeners with an open story, a non-bias by exploring for and against views.
- Reflect opinions that are both formal (professionals) and informal (children).
- Produce a factual feature based on secondary and primary research.
- The feature follow station/editorial guidelines to assure it can be aired on day-time radio, accessible for children and adults.
Key Contributors
- A primary school local to Lincoln would be a good way to start in terms of formal and informal interviews, location recording and possibly primary research/statistics of our own. We would like to ask the children what their opinion is on education social skills, and if possible we would like to arrange a meeting with parents and teachers.
- The Lincolnshire County Council will also be a key contributor, as they could answer questions from a more political view i.e. in terms of budgets, UK statistics and their personal view as people professionally involved in this area.
- Talking to a psychology expert will be a good contribution to the feature in terms of social behaviour lessons and relation to adult behaviour. This could also be a key factor for potential discussion into DBT (Dialect Behaviour Therapy).
- BGU’s input will be a key contributor as the university specialises in teaching degrees. We could establish in the feature what training is available for teachers in training in regards to children’s behaviours and social skills.
- Look at articles online including the Lincolnshire Echo for an idea of reactions in the general press (UK and local).
- Consent forms and student ID for interviews and primary research.
- Be sure to inform anyone involved this is a feature by students to be assessed and possibly aired on FM radio.
- Ask for relevant permission for location recording and other recording.
Content/Style/Feature
A narrator will guide the listener through the content with archive sounds, location recordings, such as at a primary school, as well as packages and interviews to envelop and reflect the environment of the project.
Audience/Station/Web
The feature would work well on stations like BBC Radio 4 or BBC Lincolnshire. Our main objective is to aim for an adult audience, parents especially. 5pm would be a fitting time slot for the feature as most children and parents are home.
Treatment:
The feature will start with the ringing of a bell in primary school to indicate the day has begun, location recording will be a major factor particularly with the sound affects aspect of the feature.
SFX – “Sounds of students in the hallway, distant conversations within…”
“One on one conversation with a young child, as well as a group conversation with two or three kids bouncing off of each other’s talking points.”
SFX – “Playground noises, kids screaming and laughing while playing together.”
“Cuts to a controlled classroom with pupils listening to the teacher.”
- Narrator link (recorded in the studio)
Introduces location and presents the feature and what it will educate the audience on. The narrator will keep the listener informed as to what is happening within the school and what will be happening next. It will be presented as a sort of step by step as to how we are digesting social skills and emotional behaviour curriculum within schools. The Narrator will preferably have an accent to keep the audiences interest; they will also sound appropriate to the station and type of audience we are aiming for.
Interviewee – a group of children at the beginning of the feature, talking about what they’ve experienced in primary school relating to our subject, bouncing off of each other’s talking points.
SFX – fade in sounds of the primary students leaving school, making plans for the next day or even how their day was, what challenges they faced, then fade out.
Interviewee – cut to a teacher or maybe a psychology expert discussing an activity related to building emotional or social skills and whether it was successful or unsuccessful. Also could discuss how parent involvement is crucial and whether or not it has been an issue, and then cut out.
SFX – fade in sounds of desks closing, books opening, backpacks zipping, etc.
The feature would continue as such…
Research Summary: List of credible sources to encourage further research…
Source
- Building off BBC Education & Family articles, as well as features on BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24302481
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z5bqd
- Various websites from Google searches
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181718/DFE-RR049.pdf
http://www.danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted
- Guardian articles
- Modern technology devices such as tablets and smartphones are something most people use; including modern parents. Often you can see it for yourself, when parents are using these devices as a way of diverting their young child’s attention. You may see it in your local shop to stop them from misbehaving, or in the dentist’s waiting room, it`s something that to the concern of many experts is increasingly happening! Researchers have warned that this could be detrimental to children’s social-emotional development. It has been a worry that these devices may be replacing more hands on activities that are important for a child’s development of different skills. “If these devices become the predominant method to calm and distract young children, will they be able to develop their own internal mechanisms of self-regulation?” is a question asked by scientists.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/may/02/schools.uk2
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/05/children-social-skills-parenting
- Books
“Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman
“Skills Training for Struggling Kids” by Michael L. Bloomquist
- Government websites for background on SEAL
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181718/DFE-RR049.pdf
We are currently using these to build off of, but we will come across more in the future through working progress.