BTEC National Diploma In Media Production - Print Based (Incorporating National Award)

This course is suitable for students with the desire and interest to pursue a career in Journalism.

4 GCSEs at grade C or above (including English Language) plus a successful interview and reference.

This is a journalism course pure and simple. You will take eighteen units over two years which will introduce all the skills and techniques that you will need to suceed in the world of journalism.

At the moment the timetable requires students to be in college three dyas a week.

Journalists work in a wide range of media-radio, televison, the internet as well as the more obvious worlds of magazines and newspapers. Journalists also works in a dizzying range of specialist areas-sport, fashion, hard news, gossip, motoring and many more.

So this course is designed to give students the foundation skills they will need to flourish in all and any of those fields. In the first year six of your nine units will be devoted to learning the practical skills of resourcing, good writing, revising,lay-out and design. In the second year four of the nine units will develop and refine these skills.

The remaining units will look at the make up of the media world and the ethics of journalism (and its complications). You will also study the survival skills you will need to establish yourself as a freelance in the media market.

Finally three of your units will focus on developing the professional skills of radio journalism. The college is establishing its own dedicated radio station to help students grow these skills in a real-life working environment.

There are no exams; assessment is entirely through coursework, and teaching centres on learning through doing. There is a strong emphasis on practical activities including:

*Scripting and broadcasting on the college radio station.

*Work experience-we have a network of placements with local and national titles.

*Workshops.

*Selling your work as a freelance writer.

*Class Visits-to newspapers and magazines but also to potential stories.

*Writing and designing your own student magazine.

*Researching and interviewing.

The intention is that by the end of the two years, students will have an excellent qualification (the equivalent of 3 A Levels) but also a portfolio of high-end articles that will act as a calling card to universities and potential employers.

The intention is that on successfully completing this course you will be able to progress to a full-time job as a journalist or on to any of the 658 university courses which cover journalism.