At the end of last term, all Year 8 ventured out to the Arts Centre to experience Sound Stage, and podcast production as part of their English study of the radio play Flowers for Algernon. On the excursion, students were able to work on their vocal delivery and recording techniques for their radio play, edit their audio, sound effects and music. Students used computers to record their voice, edit the recordings and choose sound effects and music to enhance their work.

This excursion aligns with the ACARA English curriculum in the domains of interpersonal learning, listening and speaking and interdisciplinary learning through communication, developing ICT skills and engaging in creative thinking.

This excursion is an intrinsic part of this unit of study and a highlight for the students as you can see from the write up by two of our Year 8 students.

Year 8 students share their experience at Sound Stage

Year 8 English classes have been studying the radio play Flowers for Algernon this term. To expand our knowledge of radio plays and how they are made we went into the city to the Sound Stage at the Arts Centre to make one ourselves. Before the excursion, we spent a few lessons in pairs writing our very own radio play. We were encouraged to come up with creative ideas and interesting settings.

On the day, we trained into the city and walked to the Arts Centre where we excitedly waited to begin recording and bring our plays to life. We started off learning how to make a podcast and about the history of radio plays. After we understood how the program worked we began recording!

Acting out all our different characters and putting on quirky accents was so much fun and different to anything we had ever done before. However, that wasn’t even the best part. After we started what we thought was going to be the tedious process of editing, we discovered that there where so many different sound effects that added lots of depth and dimensions to our story and characters.

Overall, it was one of the best city experiences Year 8 has been on and it was fantastic how everyone got involved.

Allegra Dennison (Year 8) and Sophie Williams (Year 8)
Mrs Ceri Lloyd, Head of English