Skills you learn from Media Studies (Year 11)

Media Studies builds a mix of critical and creative skills - reading content closely, understanding audiences, producing across print, video, audio, and digital, and adapting communication for different channels. This lesson plan will help you to show Year 11 students the skills they've built and which subjects build the same ones.

This lesson is designed to be delivered in 30 minutes as a teacher-led classroom activity.

This activity supports the following frameworks:

  • Gatsby Benchmark 4

This activity is suitable for Year 11 and features careers linked to the following subjects:

  • Media Studies

This is one of three lesson plans designed for Year 11 Media Studies teachers:

These lesson plans will help you show students how Media Studies connects to their future careers.

We recommend using this lesson plan at the end of the autumn term. By this point Year 11 students have over a year of GCSE Media Studies behind them and are beginning to weigh post-16 options. Recognising the skills they've built - and seeing where the same skills are developed in other subjects - helps them choose a complementary set of A-Levels, T-Levels, or training routes.

Learning objectives

  • Students will name specific skills they've built through GCSE Media Studies, with examples.
  • Students will recognise other subjects that build the same skills.
  • Students will consider how that shapes their post-16 choices.

Before the lesson

  • You will need a computer connected to the internet and a classroom screen.
  • Open the What can you do with Media Studies? page and have it ready on the screen.
  • Review the Skills that Media Studies builds section and think of recent teaching examples for each one - set products you've studied, audience or industry case studies, and the practical production work.

During the lesson

1. What have we studied over GCSE? (5 mins)

  • Ask students to call out set products, case studies, or production briefs they've covered in GCSE Media Studies.
  • Write the suggestions on the board and highlight any patterns.

2. Skills that Media Studies builds (15 mins)

  • Bring up the What can you do with Media Studies? page on the classroom screen.
  • Review the contents of the page with students so that they understand what it covers.
  • Scroll to the Skills that Media Studies builds section and work through each skill in turn.
    • Ask students which set product, case study, or production piece from the board involved that skill.
    • Share your own teaching examples if students are stuck.

3. The same skills in other subjects (10 mins)

  • Ask students to think about where else they've built these same skills.
    • Which other subjects involve close reading and structured argument from evidence?
    • Which other subjects ask you to think about audiences and how to communicate to them?
    • Which other subjects involve planning and producing a substantial piece of your own work?
  • Go round the class, asking each student to name one skill and one other subject they've built it in.
  • Close by reminding students that choosing a good set of post-16 subjects isn't just about which ones they enjoy - it's about which ones compound the skills they want to take into work or further study.

After the lesson