Video production company Ark Media have been filming with Little Sutton Primary School in Sutton Coldfield to develop a suite of videos to help educate children across the country during lockdown. 

Little Sutton Primary school is one of only 34 schools chosen nationally to be an English Hub. 

They are funded by the Department of Education (DFE) to promote a love of reading, early language development and phonics to schools. 

During lockdown the DFE wanted to produce online video lessons to ensure children and parents had access to useful learning materials in an accessible format to support them when they are home schooling.  

The school knew they needed to communicate with children in an engaging way and utilised video content to achieve this. 

They commissioned local video production company, Ark Media, to produce 90 lessons. 

Little Sutton English Hub is working alongside the Wandle English hub to develop a suite of videos for the letters and sounds phonics scheme. 

The daily lesson videos help help children continue to develop their phonics skills and ensure their learning is maintained during lockdown.  

Rachel Davis, headteacher at Little Sutton Primary School, said: “Reading is fundamental to children’s learning at school; being able to read confidently is essential for the world of work and ultimately a necessity for life. 

“With the enforced closure of schools, it was important to find a way of helping children to continue learning to read. It has been great to work with Ark Media to develop this suite of videos that children across the country can benefit from. We are grateful for their filming and quick turnaround times.”

Phil Arkinstall (pictured), MD at Ark Media, said: “We are really proud to have been involved in this project which will help parents and children during lockdown.  At the moment many of our filming projects have been stalled and whilst we can still provide editing and animation services it’s great to be able to be out filming.”   

The videos were launched on 27 April and within 24 hours they had been viewed over 80,000 times ad amassed 17,000 subscribers. 

The YouTube channel can be found here.