Media
Studies Media Studies Media Studies

Why Study Media Studies?

At Beaulieu Convent School, GCSE Media Studies equips students with the critical skills and confidence to analyse, interpret, and create media texts across a wide range of platforms, forms, and contexts. In a world saturated with media messages, we aim to develop thoughtful, questioning students who understand not only how media texts are constructed, but why they are produced, who they are for, and whose voices they amplify or marginalise.

Media Studies fosters visual literacy alongside written and verbal communication. Students learn to read media texts with the same rigour applied to literature: interrogating language, representation, narrative, genre, and ideology. From print advertising and film marketing to television drama, online media, music videos, and social media, students engage with contemporary and historical media products that reflect diverse audiences, cultures, and perspectives.

Year 9-11: (GCSE)

In all lessons, students develop the core skills of analysis, evaluation, research, and creative production. They learn to articulate sophisticated arguments using subject-specific terminology and to support their ideas with precise evidence. Media Studies empowers students to navigate the modern world with discernment, enabling them to recognise persuasion, challenge bias, and understand the economic, political, and social forces that shape the media landscape.

It is often said that the media influences how we see the world. Media Studies goes further: it gives students the tools to question that influence. By examining representation and power, students develop a critical awareness of how meaning is constructed and how audiences are positioned. This knowledge grants agency, allowing students to move from passive consumption to active interpretation and purposeful creation.

The Media Studies curriculum is academically rigorous and carefully sequenced to build on prior learning from Key Stage 3. Students are introduced to foundational theoretical frameworks, including representation, audience, industry, and media language, which are revisited and deepened throughout the course. The curriculum is designed to prepare students for the demands of GCSE assessment and for further study in Media, Film, English, and related disciplines.

Creative production is a central pillar of the course. Students apply their analytical knowledge to practical coursework, planning and producing original media products with clear audience targeting and purposeful design choices. Through regular extended responses, exam-style practice, and structured feedback, students build confidence, resilience, and independence as both analysts and creators. Enrichment opportunities and engagement with real-world media contexts further extend learning beyond the classroom, encouraging students to see Media Studies not simply as a subject, but as a lens through which to understand the contemporary world.