Curriculum Intent - Film Studies:

Studying GCSE Film Studies promotes a love for film not simply as a means for leisure and escapism, but as an essential art form that can enhance pupils’ understanding of the world and exploring competing values, attitudes and beliefs. Pupils who study Film are the students of the future, acquiring the skills required to develop healthy careers and great academic minds. GCSE film studies students study a range of films which have been carefully selected two allow to exploration of films of with historical, political, cultural and social context. 

Students will explore the films considering these key questions:  how they have been made, why they have been made and what effect do they have on the spectator? The answers to these questions are discovered by analysing the films via aspects of Film Form, Representation of people and places, Narrative structure and contexts. 

Through the gained understanding of how and why a film is produced by its makers and received by its audience, students produce their own concept for a film, via the option of a screenplay or two to two and half minute live action (accompanied by a detailed evaluation in which students can demonstrate their deeper understanding of film making techniques).  

At A Level, students are offered the opportunity to study Media Studies, which broadens students’ understanding gained from studying the medium of film at GCSE. 

The A Level Media course offers learners the opportunity to develop a thorough and in depth understanding of key issues (such as the relevance of globalised media and how technological developments suggest their centrality in contemporary life). A comprehensive theoretical framework and a variety of advanced theoretical approaches and theories are used to support critical exploration and reflection, analysis and debate. 

Consolidating the students’ understanding of various media texts, a linked production coursework is produced, selected from a brief provided by Eduqas.