With Google, YouTube and the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, we built a media literacy programme and took it into classrooms across the UK.
The challenge
Young people carry more news in their pockets than any generation before them, and fewer of the tools needed to judge it. Research from the National Literacy Trust found that only 2% of children have the critical literacy skills they need to tell if a news story is real or fake, while half of teachers believe that the national curriculum does not equip children with the literacy skills they need to identify fake news. The result is a generation fluent in scrolling and far less practised at questioning what it scrolls past. For an organisation built on helping people understand the news and why it was written, this was a problem worth taking on.
Our approach
Working with Google and YouTube as part of their Be Internet Citizens programme, we designed a series of workshops around four themes: emotional manipulation, spotting fake news, media bias and echo chambers. Each one was built as a conversation. Two facilitators from the Common Sense network led every session, using prompts, real examples and custom graphics to draw students into the discussion. Part of their job was keeping the room respectful, which matters when the topics touch on identity, politics and what people believe to be true.
We then partnered with the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust to take the programme into schools, delivering the workshops to 4,000 students across the UK.
The outcome
4,000 students reached in schools across the UK
Four workshop themes, accredited by Google and YouTube
Two facilitators in every session
“Expertly delivered session.”
“Pacy, full of engagement and discussion, and rich in content.”
Hosts described as “knowledgeable, personable and professional.”
The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust
