With close links to IT, Creative iMedia has a hands-on approach to learning about digital technology, whilst exploring creative digital media. This course equips learners with a range of skills and provide opportunities to develop, in context, transferable skills such as research, planning, and evaluation, working with others and communicating creative concepts effectively. The hands on approach has strong relevance to the way young people use the technology required in creative media.

This course takes a media sector focused look at the digital industries including IT, web development, graphics development, interactive media and animation, with iMedia at its heart. Students will learn about the product life cycle and create a series of digital products for a given scenario. One of the core units develops students understanding of pre-production and the planning of digital media. Students will complete coursework units in game development, interactive media and graphics in a hands-on approach.

There are three 50 minute lessons per week in Creative iMedia using the exam board OCR. Students study pre-production documents and then learn some basic about graphics including bitmaps and vectors, file types and resolution, image editing and graphics creation.

 Students study the following 4 units in both Year 10 and 11:

• Creative iMedia in the media industry 40% (Written Paper: 1 hour 30 minutes)

In this unit you will learn about the sectors, products and job roles that form the media industry. You will learn the legal and ethical issues considered and the processes used to plan and create digital media products. You will learn how media codes are used within the creation of media products to convey meaning, create impact and engage audiences. You will learn to choose the most appropriate format and properties for different media products. Completing this unit will provide you with the basic skills for further study or a range of creative job roles within the media industry

• Visual Identity and Digital Graphics 25% (Coursework unit)

In this unit you will learn how to develop visual identities for clients. You will also learn to apply the concepts of graphic design to create original digital graphics which incorporate your visual identity to engage a target audience. Completing this unit will introduce the foundations for further study or a wide range of job roles within the media industry.

• Digital Games 35% (Coursework unit)

In this unit you will learn to interpret client briefs to devise original digital game concepts. You will learn to plan digital games effectively and to use a Game Design Document to create engagement among developers and clients. You will learn to create, edit, test and export playable digital games which you have designed. Completing this unit will provide you with the basic skills for further study or a range of creative and technical job roles within the media industry.