Five students from Bath Spa University recently worked at this year’s Children’s Global Media Summit, curated by the BBC in Manchester.
Four BA (Hons) Publishing students and one BA (Hons) Business and Management student attended the three day summit which took place last week at Manchester Central.
The summit welcomed delegates from across the world to join in the conversation about the future role of children’s media.
Around 130 speakers from organisations including the BBC, Facebook, Sky, The Walt Disney Company and YouTube, delivered keynote talks and sessions on the challenges and opportunities for children’s media in a fast-moving digital world.
During the summit the students heard from broadcasters, journalists, authors, filmmakers and actors.
They were also able to put their learning into practice working with the BBC Social Media team in Manchester to create multimedia content for social media – video interviews, VoxPops, reportage and photos.
Business and Management student Emily Butler developed pre-event social media content for the summit. She also created images and content for the daily industry forum discussions.
Second year Publishing student Honey Debney-Succoia and final year Publishing student Liam Jones interviewed Tony Hall, Director General of the BBC, Steven Denure, President and Chief Operating Officer of DHX Media, Canada, and the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.
Honey said: “It’s really boosted my confidence speaking to such highly esteemed professionals and interviewing them.”
Liam added: “It was a privilege meeting speakers and hearing the inspirational things they had to say. Dave Coplin was very passionate about how to get to grips with new technology to help children to make their lives easier and transform learning.”
Final year Publishing student Jemma Gardner and Kat Valentine produced reportage and VoxPops.
Jemma commented: “It was fascinating to discover how the industry is trying to break down the barriers in children’s media to take advantage of the digital age.”
James Bridgeman, BBC Children’s Social Media Editor, said: “We were very impressed by the enthusiasm, skill and ingenuity of this team of motivated self-starters. They were always willing to help and throw ideas into the mix. It was a pleasure to work with such a talented team.”
Katharine Reeve, Subject Leader for Publishing at Bath Spa University, added: “This was a fantastic opportunity for our students to work at an international industry event. They were extremely professional and captured a wonderfully wide range of content.”
Bath Spa offers a creative and studio-based undergraduate Publishing course, which provides students with valuable industry experience, specialist career coaching and a digital portfolio of work to show to employers. Many students undertake work placements and freelance work with support from their course lecturers.
They also participate in field trips and have the opportunity to study abroad, and work on live projects and industry collaborations during their studies.
Bath Spa BA (Hons) Publishing students have completed projects for the Bath Film Festival, Forest of Imagination arts events, the National Trust, Penguin Random House, TEDxYouthBath and TEDxBristol.
The course has high levels of graduate employment. Students are taught core publishing and digital making skills, preparing them for a wide range of careers from editorial to content production and design.
Graduates have secured employment with the BBC, Penguin Random House, Parragon Books and Taylor and Francis.
This year Bath Spa launched an MA in Children’s Publishing. The creative and studio-based masters is the world’s first MA Children’s Publishing course and explores children’s and young adult publishing with a specialist focus on print and digital publishing, and international publishing.
