DGSChapter’s Shine Success!
Dartford Grammar School’s DGSChapter gained two ‘Highly Commended’ awards including Best Podcast as well as Best Cartoon at the annual Shine School Media Awards.
Five journalists with Mr Woodcock set out to the prestigious Stationers’ Hall in London for the Shine School Media Awards ceremony. The Shine School Media Awards is a national scheme open to all secondary schools in the country, recognising excellence in journalism and the skills that it entails.
The school was shortlisted for six awards in total, including the two above stated categories. DGS was also shortlisted for Best Community and Environmental Initiative and Best Business Strategy. Mr Woodcock was shortlisted for Most Inspirational Teacher and Joseph (our Co-Editor) made the final eight in the Shine Scholar category for most outstanding pupil.
The Shine experience started with several workshops including a workshop from Hugh Dickerson (Google UK), explaining to us the prevalence of mobile devices. According to Google, over 50% of Google searches are performed through a mobile device.
Team DGSChapter enjoying lunch at @shinemediawards @DartfordGS pic.twitter.com/jj18UlWBg6
— DGS Journalism (@dgsjournalism) July 2, 2018
Following on from this, we were delighted by a welcome speech from Shine Chair Annie Hotton, followed by a brief speech from Shine Scholar 2017 Bill Bowkett. The journalists then enjoyed a gourmet lunch!
Thirty other leading schools in the country were in the finals of the awards including City of London School, St Olave’s School, Sutton Grammar School, Bodmin College and more.
As part of the Best Podcast award, DGSChapter journalists interviewed the indie band Transition as well as BBC presenter and oceanographer, Dr Helen Czerski for DGSChapter’s podcast programme, DGSChapter Extra. Judges praised how the podcast was unique, as well as describing how it had a wide variety of good, clear questions.
Judges Neil Jones and Richard Chapman commented: “A unique podcast discussing Chinese fusion music, language and culture. It’s a great choice of topic and the superb interviewer had an astute selection of good, clear questions answered by a compelling and erudite guest.”
Thomas, our Politics and Education Writer, drew the award-winning cartoon that judges described as “a neat illustration”. His cartoon, named ‘The Catch with the Common Fisheries Policy’, depicts the possible implications of Brexit regarding fishing.
Steve Marchant from The Cartoon Museum described the cartoon: “A neat illustration which straddles the divide between a drawn and satirical approach.”
Looking back on a remarkable day, editor-in-training and current secretary Daniel O’Neill described the day as “really enjoyable” and various members of the team praised the comments given to them by the judges. DGSChapter now holds exciting plans for the next year… watch this space!