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Social

Action
Research
booklet
Contents
Task 1: Brainstorm on social issues
Task 2: Research on other action videos
Task 3: Research on own video
Task 4: contact details and angle for own
production

Task 1:
(This should have been done in the idea process you now need to write it down
for example you looked into an issue and did not like it, or you are realized it
was too difficult these ideas need to be noted now)

Your brainstorms should cover:


The issue
The effect the issue has on community
How easy it would be to cover the social issue
What has been done to cover this issue before
Rough idea on who you can interview

Idea 1:
ABC to Read-
An issue concerning in Berkshire schools of teaching children how to read and
improve literacy skills.
It affects the local community of Berkshire County.
Interviewing the volunteers and the children that they have helped.
Yes, it has been done before only on a national and global scale as of Sports Relief
and Comic Relief.
It would be very easy for us to cover the social issue as it concerns on a global
scale but we are focusing it on a local issue.

Idea 2:
Youth Crime-
An issue concerning in the Berkshire area of how to stop and decrease the
percentage of Youth Crime.
It affects the local community of Berkshire County.
Interviews with members of public, youths and the police.
Yes, it has been covered as The News has covered on the issue as well as the
Thames Valley Police.
It would be a challenge to get all of the information on different points of view on
the issue including the police, as they cannot always be allowed to give statistics
of youth crime.

Idea 3:
Homelessness-
An issue concerning in the Berkshire area of how to decrease the amount of
people being homeless.
It affects the local community of Berkshire County.
Interviews with members of the public and the homeless people living on the
streets.
Yes, Comic Relief, Sports Relief and The News have covered it on a global issue
and there have been charity video that deal with helping homeless people off the
streets promoting the social issue.
It would be easy as there are multiple centres that help homeless people get food
and skills they require to earn a living that will eventually get a shelter.

Task 2:
Compare two social action video similar to yours
(Look at LO2 Brief on website for guidance on what should be covered)

Social Action Video 1


The first social action video that is similar to my groups is B is for Books
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sZtnK7Mrk. B is for Books is a
documentary from BBC 2016; this documentary follows a group of primary school
children over the course of a year as they learn to read. The documentary also
features sections on their home lives and how that could affect them when they
are not at school. The documentary gives us the viewer a privileged access to a
profound process of the process it takes to learn to read at a young age. The
interviews are informal as they are much more relaxed in answering the questions
asked and parents; teachers are interviewed about their home life fit in helping
the children improve their literacy and reading skills.

Social Action Video 2:


The second social action video that is similar to my groups is Literacy
Intervention Programme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1sD3addPjg. This
video shows the processes of teaching children how to read. The programme
enables under-attaining pupils to 'catch up' to the literacy achievement levels
expected of their age group. The Welsh Government produced this video in order
to highlight the importance of reading to improve literacy skills. For this video,
they used interviews with teachers that do the one to one sessions with those
pupils that are struggling with their reading literacy skills. The interviews with the
teachers are formal as they are explaining their answers featuring the question in
their answers. In this video, there isnt a presenter, which means that the video
gets straight to the point. Throughout the video, the camera will cut away with
voice over of the interview with the teacher to visually back-up what the teacher
is talking about in their interview.

Task 3:
Your research should focus on:
Background on the Social issue itself:

The information on the social issues of children learning to read in schools is that:
o By the time they are 11, almost 1 in 8 children leave primary school without the
expected level of reading required for them to cope with the secondary curriculum
(Department for Education, 2013).
o About a third of six-year-olds are struggling with their reading after their first year
at school. About a quarter of seven-year-olds are still struggling with their reading
after their second year. (Department for Education, 2013).
o Half of 15-17 year olds entering public sector Young Offender Institutes were
assessed as having the literacy levels equivalent to that expected of a 7-11 year
old. (Government Green Paper, Transforming Youth Custody: Putting education at
the heart of detention February 2013)
o In 2012, disadvantaged children in West Berkshire had the worst attainment in
England at primary school level (Ofsted).
o Educational attainment in Reading especially is below average in Key Stage 1 and
2 (Children & Young Peoples Plan 2011-14).
o Around 25% of the children, we support come from poor backgrounds and
research shows that there is a direct link between poverty and illiteracy. Research
in Berkshire confirms that low levels of literacy correlate with high levels of
unemployment, over-crowded households and poverty (Berkshire Community
Foundation: Overcoming Social Deprivation).
o 27% of Reading children live in the 30% most deprived areas in England (Reading
Borough Council).
o Roughly, 85% of children diagnosed with learning difficulties have a primary
problem with reading and related language skills.
o Reading difficulties are neurodevelopmental in nature.
o Neurodevelopmental problems don't go away, but they do not mean that a
student (or an adult) cannot learn or progress in school and life.
o Most children with reading difficulties can be taught reading and strategies for
success in school.
o When children's reading problems are identified early, they are more likely to
learn strategies that will raise their reading to grade level.
Assisting Berkshire children to read (2013) Available at
http://www.abctoread.org.uk/about/why-we-are-doing-it/ (Accessed: 21 February
2017).
reserved, Wg.F. rights (2002) Difficulties with reading. Available at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/readingdiffs.html (Accessed: 21
February 2017).

Is there already a social action group to try to prevent the issue?


Yes / No

If there is: Who is involved with the group? What effects has the group had on
the community? How has it helped certain individuals? Does it already have an
action video to help its cause? (Upload these if there are)

Not just celebrities themselves that can make a difference as there are some
charities that focus on raising money to fund children that are in unfortunate
situations or in a underdeveloped poverty stricken countries to get an education
by funding money from the public and businesses. In order to build schools that
may be free or cheap for families to send their children to earn the education that
they truly deserve. Sports Relief and Comic Relief are examples of fundraising
charity that have a two-hour long show in order to raise money for children in
poor areas as to build schools.

There are national holidays in the calendar for the UK which involves the issue of
getting children to read is World Book Day, which is held every year and it
consists of schools giving out vouchers for 1 which allows them to buy a book of
their choosing out of a set of books for 1. World Book Day encourages children in
schools around the UK to get into reading and chose a book that involves a
particular interest they have and it encourages children to improve their reading
skills, as they will be reading content that they are interested in.

Are there any famous people involved in trying to prevent the situation?
There are some celebrities that work with charities that help disadvantaged
children in learning how to read and write but mainly give them education in
schools. As Angelina Jolie has founded and opened few schools in Afghanistan for
girls as they are deprived of an education or even getting a chance of learning
how to read or write. In the future Jolie wants to open more schools in
impoverished areas. Although there arent any celebrities that specifically try to
prevent the social issue of children not learning how to read but they tend focus
on building new schools for those that poverty stricken and cant afford to go to
school that would enable the children to learn to read and write. The celebrities
tend to try to help to prevent this social issue on a global scale and in poverty
stricken, underdeveloped countries where limited children are allowed to be in
schools.

Klein, R. (2014) 15 Celebs whove opened schools and are helping shape the
future. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/04/celebrities-open-
schools_n_4893141.html (Accessed: 21 February 2017).

Is there government backing to prevent the situation? Should there be?


What could they do?
Yes, there are some action taken from the government to help children to become
confident readers. The government aims for every child to achieve the best of
their ability despite location or background. All primary schools in the UK now
have a rigorous and prove systematic phonics programme in place to achieve
excellent phonic teaching from teacher just so the children can learn and be able
to decode words to the age appropriate level. According to statistics, which shows
that the last three years from the introduction of phonics, reading checks that
120,000 more children are now on track to be excellent readers. In September
2015, the Department for Education announced the governments literacy
campaign, which includes funding the reading agency that led to 200 new book
clubs for children in primary schools.

Department for Education and The Rt Hon Nick Gibb (2016) Government drive to
help more children become confident readers. Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-drive-to-help-more-children-
become-confident-readers (Accessed: 23 February 2017).
How does the issue affect the community / nation / world?
For our social action project on children learning to read and improving their
literacy skills this issue mainly affects the community on a local scale as ABC to
Read focuses on the Berkshire area but although the generic social issue of
getting children to read and improve literacy skills required for their age is on a
global scale.

Look at statistics on the social issue


o Three in 10 children in the UK do not own a single book of their own
o The survey by the National Literacy Trust also shows that boys are less
likely to own books than girls are.
o The survey of 18,141 young people found that four in 10 boys did not own
any books, compared to three in 10 girls.
o Children who did not own books were two-and-a-half times more likely
(19%) to read below their expected level than children who had their own
books (7.6%), and were also significantly less likely (35.7%) to read above
their expected level than book-owning children (54.9%).
o Children who don't own books "are less likely to have positive experiences
of reading, less likely to do well at school and less likely to be engaged in
reading in any form
o Statistics from 2014 show that one in five children in England cannot read
well by the age of 11
o England is the only country where 16-24 year olds have lower literacy and
numeracy skills than 55-65 year-olds
o A number of studies have shown that boys enjoy reading less than girls;
and that children from lower socio-economic backgrounds read less for
enjoyment than children from more privileged social classes
o The percentage of young children who are read aloud to by a family
member every day changed little between 1993 and 2007. In 2007, 55
percent of three- to five-year-old children were read to every day,
compared with 53 percent in 1993.
o In 2012, 49 percent of children with two married parents were read to
everyday, compared with 32 and 37 percent, respectively, of children with
one parent, and with two unmarried parents

Flood, A. (2017) Three in 10 UK children own no books. Available at:


https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/01/three-in-10-uk-children-own-no-
books (Accessed: 23 February 2017).
2017, T.R.A. (2017) Reading agency. Available at:
https://readingagency.org.uk/about/impact/002-reading-facts-1/ (Accessed: 23
February 2017).
Reading to young children (2017) Available at:
https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/reading-to-young-children/ (Accessed: 23
February 2017).

What can be done to prevent the issue from happening?


As the social issue is such a global issue that we ourselves cannot do anything to
prevent it from happening although the governments in different countries,
community councils are trying their best to solve this problem best as they can.

Task 4
Contact details and angle
Informative, educational or change of attitude?
Discuss why and how you will achieve this.
Our video will be informative as it is merely raising awareness for the social issue.
We are discussing what the main charity involved in this social action video does
to challenge the problem of children not learning to read and have the correct
level of literacy skills for their age. We will be achieving this by using statistics
and interviewing several of people on their opinions about the issue. Not only are
we raising awareness on the issue we are promoting what ABC to Read does as a
charity.

List of found footage you can use and reference where it has come from

o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2c5OJ5Yx0
UniversityLeicester (2010) Primary science - classroom Organisation.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2c5OJ5Yx0 (Accessed:
23 February 2017).
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sZtnK7Mrk
Gibbs (2016) B is for book BBC documentary 2016. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sZtnK7Mrk (Accessed: 23 February
2017).

o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jK-jC2__Fw
KaBOOM! (2010) The role of play in the overly-academic classroom.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jK-jC2__Fw (Accessed: 23
February 2017).

What ethical issues will you have to overcome or be careful


documenting?
The ethical issues that we will face when filming our documentary is that we are
filming at a school, which already means that we have a lot of legal issues behind
it as we have to get adult permission for children under the age of 16. Also when
interviewing some of the students at the school we had to protect their identity by
not saying their name and covering the school logo on their school uniform in
order to protect the where about of the children when at school. Another ethical
issue that we may face is how we portray the children, as we are not allowed to
portray them in a certain way that may be negative also when talking about
children learning how to read we are not putting any blame on the upbringing of
the specific child. We are only showing that this charity ABC to Read helps
children learn to read as well as help them build self-esteem and confidence and
not the problems that they have when reading as every child is in a different
situation and level.

According to the Channel 4 guidelines, when filming children under the age of 16
is that Programme-makers should not encourage or incite under 18s to say or do
things that they would not have done otherwise. Showing off and playing up for
the cameras should be discouraged. means that we should not be encouraging
the children to say certain things as everything that they say must be their own
opinion. When asking the children questions we have to ask simple and easy
questions that they understand what they are being asked to give an opinion on.
According to the guidelines the questions shouldnt be of the following matters of:
sexual matters; personal relationships or private family matters; antisocial or
illegal behaviour they have been involved in or are considering; alcohol or drug
use/abuse; addictions of any kind; their bodies; medical matters; illnesses they
suffer or have suffered from, physical or mental; generally being unhappy, being
depressed, self-harm or having suicidal thoughts; accidents or attacks they have
been involved in which have led to serious harm.
List of social action groups you could interview. Can you follow a
volunteer or member of the project?
For our group social action project, we are planning to interview the volunteers
from ABC to Read, the children that ABC to Read helps, Teachers from Lynch Hill
Primary School in Slough and a Librarian.

Research on the subject: Research around the subject? Information that


you need to know BEFORE you interview people
o By the time they are 11, almost 1 in 8 children leave primary school without the
expected level of reading required for them to cope with the secondary curriculum
(Department for Education, 2013).
o About a third of six-year-olds are struggling with their reading after their first year
at school. About a quarter of seven-year-olds are still struggling with their reading
after their second year. (Department for Education, 2013).
o Half of 15-17 year olds entering public sector Young Offender Institutes were
assessed as having the literacy levels equivalent to that expected of a 7-11 year
old. (Government Green Paper, Transforming Youth Custody: Putting education at
the heart of detention February 2013)
o In 2012, disadvantaged children in West Berkshire had the worst attainment in
England at primary school level (Ofsted).
o Educational attainment in Reading especially is below average in Key Stage 1 and
2 (Children & Young Peoples Plan 2011-14).
o Around 25% of the children, we support come from poor backgrounds and
research shows that there is a direct link between poverty and illiteracy. Research
in Berkshire confirms that low levels of literacy correlate with high levels of
unemployment, overcrowded households and poverty (Berkshire Community
Foundation: Overcoming Social Deprivation).
o 27% of Reading children live in the 30% most deprived areas in England (Reading
Borough Council).
o Roughly, 85% of children diagnosed with learning difficulties have a primary
problem with reading and related language skills.
o Reading difficulties are neurodevelopmental in nature.
o Neurodevelopmental problems do not go away, but they do not mean that a
student (or an adult) cannot learn or progress in school and life.
o Most children with reading difficulties can be taught reading and strategies for
success in school.
o When children's reading problems are identified early, they are more likely to
learn strategies that will raise their reading to grade level.
o A childs reading skills are important to their success in school and work. In
addition, reading can be fun and imaginative activity for children, which opens
doors to all kinds of new worlds for them.
o reading and writing are important ways we use language to communicate.
o Studies show that reading for pleasure makes a big difference to childrens
educational performance.
o Evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment everyday not only
perform better in reading tests than those who dont, but also develop a broader
vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other
cultures.
o In fact, reading for pleasure is more likely to determine whether a child does well
at school than their social or economic background.
o Reading helps to develop a young childs brain. In the first six years, children at a
much faster pace than at any other time in their lives. Vital connections in the
brain are made very early in life.
o At birth, a healthy baby is born with approximately 200 billion active brain cells or
neurons.
o As parents talk, sing and read to their children, existing links among brain cells
are strengthened and new links are formed. At a younger age, learning is faster
than it will be as the child grows older.
o When a child is taught to read, the process of learning has a profound influence
on the entire functioning and development of the brain. You can play a critical
early role by inculcating not only reading skills and ability but more importantly,
instilling a lifelong love of learning and reading.
o Reading opens the door to the childs early academic success, imparts a love of
learning and leads to higher grades in every subject. Studies have shown that
strong oral language skills are the basis for literacy development. When children
learn to read at an early age, they have greater general knowledge, expand their
vocabulary and become fluent readers. They also have improved attention spans
and better concentration.
o Early readers can recognize a larger number of words by sights, which enables
them to learn more from and about their environment.
o A child who learns to read joyfully at home, at an early age, with a loving parent
or caregiver, grows in self-confidence and independence.
o Reading promotes greater maturity, increases discipline and lays the basis for
moral literacy. It sparks curiosity about people, places and things and satisfies the
childs curiosity by providing explanations of how things work. It exposes the child
to a range of problem-solving techniques. In addition, early reading ignites the
childs creativity and imagination.

Benefits of early reading - why teach your child to read? (no date) Available at:
http://www.teachreadingearly.com/benefits-of-early-reading.php (Accessed: 21
February 2017).
PLC, P. (2016) Why is reading so important? Available at:
https://uk.pearson.com/primary-parents/learn-at-home/help-your-child-to-enjoy-
reading/why-is-reading-so-important.html (Accessed: 21 February 2017).
Assisting Berkshire children to read (2013) Available at:
http://www.abctoread.org.uk/about/why-we-are-doing-it/ (Accessed: 21 February
2017).
reserved, Wg.F. rights (2002) Difficulties with reading. Available at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/readingdiffs.html (Accessed: 21
February 2017).

What shots / cut a ways / footage will you need to film in order for the
social action video to have impact?
We would need to film many vox pops of the library and boards around the school
that promotes reading and books in general as well as a part of a session that ABC
to Read volunteers does with the children at the children just so the audience will
get a chance to see what goes on in the sessions. We also will be featuring
interviews with two of the volunteers and one of the field workers of ABC to Read
to get a feel of what they do and also we will be interviewing two of the children
that the ABC to Read volunteers does the half an hour sessions with to get their
opinion. We will also be using voice-overs and statistics to tie in the social action
video together.

Interviews
Contact details

Name: Lynch Hill Primary School- Afua


Position: The school that ABC to Read helps
Involvement in action: ABC to Read helps children improve literacy skills and
reading at Lynch Hill Primary School
What can they discuss in the video? They will be discussing the benefits that
the school has on having the charity ABC to Read coming in with their volunteers
to help specific children learn to and improve their literacy skills to advance their
literacy level for their age.
Where can they be interviewed? Children and teachers are going to be
interviewed at school where the learning environment is suitable for the social
action video project.
Phone number: 01753524170 or 015753691583
Email address: office@ihspa.org.uk

Name: Volunteers from ABC to Read- Lindsay, Liz and Eileen


Position: Volunteers that help six children each to read
Involvement in action: The volunteers part of ABC to Read that helps six
children each to read
What can they discuss in the video? They are discussing what their interests
in reading, childrens attitudes towards the session, why they decided to start
volunteer in ABC to Read, why is reading is important, what happens in a session.
Where are they being interviewed? They are interviewed at the school in a
small meeting room and in the library
Phone number: 0118 951 1336
Email address: abctoread@btconnect.com

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