Broadcasting a new school sound in the hood
Randwick Park School in South Auckland is home to 88.3 Rhythm FM, a radio station for the community and run solely by the students. The station, which has a coverage range of 3km around Manurewa, was launched in November 2006 and the students are now on the air all day, every school day. Using Macs, the students write and host their own shows, create all the ads and jingles, and have even secured sponsorship for prize giveaways by promoting the station to local businesses.
ICT Coordinator Mr. Sala’a Lologa says the station is an example of inquiry learning where students direct their studies to areas that interest them. “By providing students with a vehicle to drive their own learning they’re improving their skills like literacy, numeracy and fluency....because they are reinforcing what they’re learning in the classroom [in a way] that is fun for them”.
Over 150 students from Year 5-8 applied for a position on the radio station (reflecting a real-life scenario of applying for a job) and about 80 of these were selected this year for a training programme which involves the students forming and naming a DJ group of 4 members, and earning their microphone license by submitting a script of their programme, detailed down to the minute, before going to air. Everything that is said on-air must be pre-planned and pre-approved by the Radio Station Manager (Mr. Lologa) and all broadcasting guidelines and school policies must be adhered to. Programmes are also recorded and children are closely monitored while on air.
Part of the criteria for winning a microphone license is to ensure ‘listeners are hooked in’ so there are lots of competitions to win prizes. Listeners text the correct answer in and winners are announced on the air. Mr Lologa said that the children soon realised that it would be too costly for the school to provide prizes “...so they had to think of ways of obtaining goods from local businesses. Within each radio group, the children had to select a sales rep, who is in charge of ringing up local businesses to ask for a donation of goods or services in exchange for free advertising on the radio station. In this process children have found out the importance of planning what they are asking for. One child learnt the importance of having a polite phone manner, as it encouraged the spirit of giving. Another student found out the importance of talking clearly on the phone, with a smile, and one child was asked to talk more slowly and clearly. This child has learnt a valuable life lesson, as her English and phone manner have improved immensely”.
Mr. Lologa says “The children have successfully integrated what they have been learning in class, then broadcasting it live on-air. Last term, the senior school’s focus was Careers. The radio groups used the inquiry learning process to formulate learning questions to find out about their chosen career. They went on to conduct interviews with leading personalities within our community. These personalities included Manukau Mayor Len Brown, Mark Beale (Chairperson of Manukau Beautification Trust), TV’s Mike McRoberts & Mark Sainsbury, and Janice Thompson from the Randwick Park Community House. Just to get the above interviews, the children had to learn more about the deeper features of an interview. They learnt what makes an interesting interview and learnt different attention grabbing lines to hook in listeners. For many students it was their first time to interview others.”.
Feedback from teachers has been supportive...“It’s great for a teacher to assess a student’s abilities because all they have to do is turn on the radio” says Mr. Lologa, and the station also helps the school connect with the community “...not everyone in our community has a computer but everyone has a radio” he says.
Parent’s View
“I have two daughters who are DJs for 88.3 Rythym FM. I have observed their confidence and desire to learn new skills improve since their involvement with the radio station.
They particularly enjoy the successes and support they have received from the community and businesses in the form of sponsorship.
Instead of hitting the playstation after school they ... race to use the computer so they can work on their scripts and jingle creations for their radio shows!”
Student’s View
“Since the formation of our team ‘The Crack Attackz’, each member of the group has worked really hard to create a great show. As a team we wrote a script, made adverts for sponsors and for our group, produced a curriculum report, working towards a talk back and careers show. Each member of the team was assigned a job to do. We’d also tried to get people from the community to interview every week.
The best part about the working on the radio station is when everything comes together and that all the hard work during the week has paid off. Mr Lologa guided us through and we also got help from home and especially our teacher”.
