Digital Media
Welcome to Digital Media!
Media at Carshalton Boys is built around a simple idea: students should not just consume media — they should understand how it works, question the messages it communicates and develop the skills to create it themselves. From film and television to advertising, social media, video games, magazines and photography, media shapes how we understand the world and ourselves. We want our students to be confident, critical and creative participants in that world.
Our Media curriculum offers both Digital Media and Media Studies courses (see Media Studies information here), all combining critical analysis, theoretical understanding and practical production. Students learn to deconstruct media products, understand how audiences are targeted and represented, explore the role of ownership and industry, and apply their knowledge to the creation of their own media products. Alongside developing academic knowledge and subject-specific vocabulary, students build practical skills in areas such as photography, graphic design, video production, editing and digital content creation.
Our Digital Media Curriculum Map:
(Digital Media Curriculum Map 2026-2027 link)
Our Curriculum
Our curriculum is ambitious by design, developing students from confident media consumers into informed analysts and creative producers. Digital Media is offered at Key Stage 5, but has clear links to earlier years through the Media Studies curriculum. At Key Stage 3 and 4, students can choose Media Studies, with strong links to Digital Media as they are introduced to the theoretical framework through a broad range of theoretical and practical projects. Students learn how meaning is constructed through images, sound, editing, layout, colour, typography and other media language, while exploring why these choices are made in relation to ownership, audiences and representation. As their understanding develops, students build the confidence to experiment with their own ideas and apply their knowledge creatively through practical production.
Across all stages, we place a strong emphasis on students being able to think critically, communicate effectively and create purposefully. We want students to leave Media with both the academic knowledge to understand the media landscape and the practical confidence to contribute to it.
Key Stage 5
OCR Cambridge Technicals Level 3 Vocational Digital Media Extended Certificate offers a vocational and production-focused route, with students developing practical skills and producing professional-style digital media products alongside their theoretical understanding.
Cambridge Technicals Digital Media Extended Certificate
The Cambridge Technicals Digital Media course provides a practical and vocational pathway into the creative and digital industries. Students develop skills across areas such as pre-production, digital photography, graphic design, video production, editing and interactive media, while learning how professional media products are planned, produced and evaluated. The course places a strong emphasis on practical application, allowing students to develop a portfolio of work and transferable skills relevant to further education, apprenticeships and employment within the creative industries.
CAMTEC
Subject Leader: Brodie Hennell - bhennell@carshaltonboys.org