Newington pupils go live with upgraded Triple A ‘Vadio’ station

Triple A Vadio

Young broadcasters at Newington Community Primary School in Ramsgate are going live with their new-look award-winning radio station.

The school’s Triple A Radio and Video output – known as Vadio – is now being created on newly-installed top high-spec equipment including a mixing desk, microphones, monitors and specialist computer hardware and software all mounted in a professional workstation.

It was their prize for winning at the inaugural nationwide young broadcasters competition run by the radio industry earlier this year where they took the honours in two categories – Achievement in the Community; and Best Use for Education sponsored by schoolradio.com.

The radio team is currently preparing new programmes on the system and these will be available to upload from the school website as well as being listened to in classrooms during break and lunchtimes.

Music teacher Warwick Eldred said: “The upgrade in our set up is a brilliant resource for our children. They will be able to achieve a much quicker turnaround in their programme creating and the technical layout is easy to understand and intuitive.

“The software includes a programme scheduler so they can make packages of information and events news that can be broadcast more easily in sequence with other output.”

Triple A team members working with the new station are impressed. Lexi said: “I love how comfortable the headphones are and how clear everything sounds,” while Harry described the set up as “breath-taking.” Annie thinks it is “very cool and technical,” while Matilda added: “It is easy to use,” Madeleine said: “It’s just awesome to have this in our school.”

The aim is for the video/radio side of the station to concentrate more on documentaries such as the recent ones about children’s author Roald Dahl and The Great Fire of London, while the radio output will be more school information based with regular bulletins and an audio version of the school newsletter.

In recent months the Triple A team have appeared on BBC television’s children’s news programme Newsround and also broadcast an hour-long show across the UK in the summer on the Fun Kids digital radio network.

Newington CPS Head Teacher Cliff Stokes said: “The Triple A set up goes from strength to strength and it is a good educational tool that encourages teamwork and strong inter-personal and communication skills. It is an informative way of learning and is also a positive addition to the way we present information about our Newington school community.”

Triple A stands for Ambition, Achievement and Aspiration, the Newington school ethos. The radio team is from Years 3, 4 and 5.