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CGMS – Andy Burnham Keynote

December 21, 2017 , 0

Greg Childs, Director of the Children's Media Foundation reports on Andy Burnham's Keynote at the Children's Global Media Summit 2017 in Manchester.

Welcome Address - Andy Burnham

Wednesday 6 July

In a welcome address for the second day of the three day event, ex Cabinet Minister, Andy Burnham, the new Mayor of Manchester, gave his perspective on children and media at the summit.  His major theme was education, and in particular the idea of "education for life".
Andy revealed that Manchester intends to by-pass what he saw as the conservatism of the national curriculum which is rooted not only in outdated ideas about how education should be carried out, but what kids need to know and how they gain experience..
He said that Manchester will create its own curriculum for "education for life" - to prepare children for the real and digital world, recognising the vast changes in access to information, the need for critical thinking and good understanding of rights and responsibilities and taking personal care in social media.
 
On the question of media literacy which was a common theme of the Summit, he proposed greater atenitn to general literacy in the early years. He felt that afar too many children leave primary school without the basics of literacy.  There could be nob media literacy without skills in reading and writing. “How can anyone identify fake news without the basics of literacy. “
This was also about social inclusion. The basis of his belief in the importance of education was that a more educated society is also a fairer more equal society.

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