The School believes that the ability to speak in public is one of the key skills which students will benefit from throughout their lives, both personal and professional. That is why, from their time in Infants and Primary, they begin to practice Oratory, the art of Declamation, they learn to put forward topics, and to debate and recite. Proof of their fluency and confidence was evident during the visit from the “Radio for Schools” programme, with five students becoming radio wave broadcasting professionals for 60 minutes.
Each week, Daniel Ortuño visits a school in Madrid. Children play and learn to make a radio programme, giving them a sense of the importance of audiovisual language in our lives. Radio for Schools is a public service broadcast which seeks to be an additional tool for teachers and students looking to develop experience and knowledge in different communication media.
On the 17th of January, Daniel Ortuño and his team, together with the help of our students, managed to turn one of the meeting rooms in the School into a real radio station. As well as reviewing current affairs, there was a Technology session, where they debated “the Cloud”, as a tool allowing for remote access and the storage and processing of data via the Internet. There was also a fun interview with Frankenstein.
A good part of the programme also talked about the song, created by the School´s Head Nurse in Secondary, to help children in Infants and Primary remember the Emergency phone number 112. The song has been subsequently used by the 112 service in their web campaigns, social media and in Schools, to raise awareness in children, from an early age, of the tools available to them in dangerous situations.
Our students, of course, had no choice but to sing the song for Daniel and everyone else who was tuned in.
Radio for Schools is broadcast on Saturdays, between 13.00 and 14.00, on the Madrid public radio station Onda Madrid FM (101.3 y 106.0), and also streamed live over the Internet and on a podcast (a la carte)