The students worked with a team of experts from the University’s School of Arts & Creative Industries to produce shows for the award-winning, on-campus radio station, Radio LaB, and the School’s YouTube channel, BedsTV. All of the live content they created will be graded towards one of Barnfield’s unit assessments.

Using Bedfordshire’s state-of-the-art facilities, the college group enthusiastically got involved with programming for their Radio LaB show, coming up with a variety of interesting topics to be discussed on air, such as films, music, politics and sport – even including the ongoing Ronaldo vs Messi football debate!

As part of their content gathering, the group secured an interview with Sarah Owens, Labour MP for Luton North, during which they discussed the Prime Minister’s recent announcement proposing all school pupils in England must study maths in some form until the age of 18.

Terry Lee, Senior Tutor in Radio & Audio and Radio LaB supervisor, said: “Radio LaB is a community radio station specifically designed to help nurture young people in education who are interested in multimedia and broadcasting, so this collaboration is fantastic for us. It’s been great fun to work with the students on making the radio programmes they are being assessed on. I have personally enjoyed seeing how these radio stars of the future have quickly acclimatised to our industry-standard studios in just a couple of days!”

Students from the college also took part in a taster session with the University’s media performance department to present a live TV programme broadcast online from the industry-standard television studio.

As well as gaining experience of working in a live TV studio, students were able to spend time brushing up on their scriptwriting skills during a morning workshop which involved them researching and writing content for their special BedsTV show.

Rachel Clark, Senior Lecturer in Media Performance, said: “The whole group took to their individual roles enthusiastically and worked well towards the successful outcome of their show. It was a pleasure working with them and we hope to have inspired some to aim towards higher education and to pursue careers within the creative industries.”

The Barnfield visitors clearly enjoyed their time working on the live programmes, with student Lewis Miller commenting: “This takeover was a really fun and engaging experience. We felt welcomed by Radio LaB and were treated as professionals. They were very complimentary of our efforts and being live for 30 minutes flew by!”

Another student, Nabila Akter, added: “I was a little nervous at the beginning but when we started the show, I relaxed into the professional environment. I enjoyed being there, it was really a great experience and gave me a taste of the industry.”

Natalie Cooper, a teacher at Barnfield College who helped organise the visit for the students, said: “This is an exciting local partnership for us, providing learners with unique industry experience and an opportunity to be heard across their town. Working to a live brief has challenged our learners to professional standards and provided an insight into higher education – we look forward to future projects with the University.”