Educational Television Awards 2003
The Educational Television Awards 2003 were presented by Simon Shaps, RTS Chairman, on Wednesday 16 June 2004 at the Savoy, Strand, London WC2.
The evening was hosted by Reeta Chakrabarti. The Guest Speaker was Professor Stephen Heppell, Ultralab.
WINNERS
SCHOOLS TELEVISION
Early Years (formerly Pre-School & Infants)
Winner: Something Special: Programme 1 - Farm CBBC Education for BBC TWO
“The programme was clear, simple and engaging and achieved its objectives of teaching language and connecting with children with educational difficulties and special needs.”
Primary Arts and Language
Winner: Coming to England – Episode 3 Floella Benjamin Productions Ltd for BBC TWO
“The Jury felt this story was charmingly told and illuminating. A powerful depiction of how racist England was during the late 50’s and 60’s.”
Nominees:
A Fish Out Of Water CBBC Education for BBC TWO
Let’s Write A Story: Writing Academy: Programme 1 – Myths CBBC Education for BBC TWO
Secondary Arts and Languages
Winner: The English Programme: Film Focus – Food Commercials Double Exposure for Channel 4
“The jury said that the winning programme was a well thought out, boldly produced, fact-packed programme which gave an excellent insight into the process and economics of devising an advertisement.”
Nominees:
Extra (Series 2): La Cousine De La Concierge Double Exposure for Channel 4
Twelth Night Projector Productions for Channel 4
Primary Humanities
Winner: Lion Mountain Resource Base and Maverick Television for BBC
“…a profoundly moving, outstanding programme which gave an exceptional insight into the lives of refugees. Not at all patronizing and with authentic research and brilliant performances by all involved.”
Secondary Humanities
Winner: Life Stuff: This Teen Life Betty TV for Channel 4
“The young people’s lives woven into this stylishly made programme offer a refreshingly different challenging set of life experiences to provoke discussion in the classroom.”
Nominees:
Stopping Distance CBBC Education/BBC Films for BBC TWO
Life Stuff: In Search of the Tartan Turban Tartan TV for Channel 4
Primary and Secondary Science, Maths, Design and ICT
Winner: Starship Maths: Programme 4 – Shape, Space and Measure CBBC Education for BBC TWO
“This engaging programme brought zaniness and zest to the understanding of basic mathematical concepts.”
Nominees:
Primary Focus: Science - Materials BBC Learning Northern Ireland for BBC
Curriculum Bites: Want2tlk Science BBC Wales Education & Learning for BBC TWO
Primary and Secondary Multimedia and Interactive
Winner: Science Clips: Light & Shadows AV Studios for BBC TWO
“… a stimulating and fun website which makes use of flash technology and allows children to engage and participate in safe science experiments. This interactive website caters for pupils of all ages where activities are closely related to experiences both in schools and home life.”
Nominees:
Bobinogs Website (www.bbc.co.uk/bobinogs) BBC Wales Education & Learning
Life Stuff Milo Creative for Channel 4
ADULT EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION
Lifelong Learning & Multimedia
Winner: The Hajj Lion TV for 4Learning
“The Jury liked the balance between the web and programme content in the winning entry, a mainstream programme which perfectly fitted the adult learning category.”
Nominees:
Death in Rome BBC Interactive Factual & Learning
Time Team Big Dig 4Learning
Campaigns & Seasons – RTS/NIACE Award
Winner: Get Writing with Canterbury Tales BBC Learning in Drama, Illumina Digital and Preloaded for BBC
“This was one of the most inspiring and well planned educational campaigns for many years - the link to such high profile prime time drama and the long term commitment to the off-air events was extremely impressive.”
Nominee
Hitting Home A pan BBC season across Television, Radio, Online & Interactive and in conjunction with in-house production departments, September Films, Grundy Television & Kilroy Productions
Single Programme
Winner: Real Life: Being Terri Anglia Television for ITV1
“This film told its story in a simple and straight forward fashion but in Terri and her father, the film makers had found two inspiring individuals. The educational message was not overt, but no one could fail to be moved and changed by this remarkable family.”
Nominees:
Dying for Drugs A True Vision Production for Channel 4
Cutting Edge: Bad Behaviour Lion Television for Channel 4
EDUCATIONAL IMPACT IN THE PRIMETIME SCHEDULE
Winner: Pompeii: The Last Day BBC Science for BBC ONE
“…occasionally a programme tells a puzzling or misunderstood story in a way that makes sense of it to a huge audience. That was the achievement of this winning programme. With some new science, some skilful use of ancient documents and breathtaking visuals, it brought the most famous volcano eruption in history – and what it as like to live through it - into all our homes.”
Nominees:
Days That Shook The World: Hiroshima Lion Television for History Channel, BBC FOUR and BBC TWO
Mongrel Nation: Invasion Outline Productions for Discovery Channel
Judges’ Award
Adam Hart-Davis
“This year’s recipient of the Judges award began his engagement with educational television in 1977, when, as a lowly researcher his first assignment was to explain why you slip on a banana skin.
It could have been an intimation of disasters to come, but in fact his explanation was delivered with what was to become a trademark mixture of sound science and infectious enthusiasm and led to a 25 year career both behind and in front of the camera.
Yorkshire Television very sensibly took him on as a producer and he worked on popular science series with Magnus Pike, David Bellamy and became the man behind the Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World.
In their way these were all educational programmes, but when he was asked to devise a strand of programmes to support the secondary science curriculum, he came up with Scientific Eye which, over the years became a bench-mark for imaginative science education and is still transmitting to this day.
In 1989 he extended the format into another brand leader: Mathematical Eye that brought maths alive on the television screen.
In 1990 he decided that the life of a television producer was not doing his waist-line much good and he bought himself a bike and not just any old bike: a pink and yellow mountain bike.
This touch of flamboyance was enough to set him off on a whole new career: that of television presenter. He persuaded first Yorkshire, and then the BBC to film eight series of his totally beguiling bicycle trips around the country in search of unlikely dead scientists who offered an excuse for trying out their even more unlikely experiments.
He was a natural, and it is no surprise that rarely, since that first bicycle trip, has a week passed in which this year’s recipient has not been on our screens. Most recently with a hugely successful run of programmes telling us what the Romans, the Tudors, the Stuarts and the Victorians have done for us.
And it was not just television, his dynamic and imaginative programmes were quickly complemented by equally stimulating websites in which you can check the DNA of a kiwi fruit or try separating out the salt from salted peanuts.
He has recently returned to his roots by presenting yet another successful school science: Science in Focus.
He was not however nominated for this award purely for his evident popularity. It was because the programmes he writes and presents encapsulate what the best of educational television has been doing for the last thirty years: informing, enthusing, entertaining and above all surprising its audience.”