I wrote this modern-day version of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice which became the school's secondary performance. Like The Merchant of Venice, it has a range of parts for all abilities (we had students from 12 to 18 taking part) and some more adult themes and references. It was designed to be performed in the round with various scenes filmed in advance and played on a screen for the audience. We ended up filming the entire production and selling DVDs to raise money for the school. I have aimed to be as true to Shakespeare's version as possible and it was interesting to see the humour coming through the somewhat grim situations. The prologue was rapped by one of our students while a pre-recorded video (detailed in the comments) played in the background. This was created by a small group of students in Media and Visual Arts Club after school, but there would be enough pre-recorded scenes for an entire Media Studies group to storyboard, film and edit in advance.

Our school provides students with a qualification in ICT in year 9 (ages 13 - 15) but students from year 7 and 8 practice these skills beforehand. I have attached the syllabus (available from Cambridge) here http://www.cie.org.uk/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-secondary-1/cambridge-ict-starters/ Teachers work these projects into normal school lessons taking perhaps 6 hours to practice before the final exam which is done in an hour and a half. The qualification is fairly straightforward and accessible. These resources are the ones I used to prepare students including vocabulary work and papers very similar to the final exam so they can access it independently. The actual qualification requires software such as Movie Maker, Paint and the ability to download free music and sound effects from the internet, though these resources provided are mostly for classroom use before going to the computer room. Students generally use their own phones to take photos for animation or video. This was done in class or for homework. I teach several subjects, so year 7 worked on a "growth mindset" animation for PSHE, year 8 on a Geography project on coastal processes and year 9 on a Drama video for the topic "Fear". The resources are exceptionally easy to adapt. After these lessons completed in the classroom, students will go to the computer room to practice editing and using the software using the practice assessment and then when ready, can try the final exam.

The shortened tracks to accompany the short Sweeney Todd script available from my store. First three tunes: Prelude, London and Alms here are all playable through Media Player or VLC.