Chart Stars Reward Key 103 Winners

Chart toppers ‘Platnum' have visited Salford City Academy after the Peel Green school won a Key 103 media competition.  Salford City Academy students from Year 9 took part in the competition by creating radio adverts highlighting motorway safety.

Lauren Hunter, Katie Hackett, Alexandra Colishaw, Marco Tadette and Sohaib Shahid were the budding radio producers who won the prize of the Key 103 award ceremony and performance by a ‘top secret' pop group.

Key 103 producer Paul Fernley presented the students with their certificates before introducing the pop band ‘Platnum', made up of members Aaron Evers, Mina Poli and Michelle Mckenna, who had been hiding back stage!

The band's identity had been kept ‘top secret' and students were surprised and thrilled with their three song performance.  The academy hall erupted with applause, cheering and screaming as the band performed and invited students to get up and dance and sing along.  The band also encouraged academy students by telling them "they could achieve anything and everything they wanted to by working hard to achieve their goals."

The competition began back in November 2009 when the Key 103 media bus visited the academy and gave Year 9 students the opportunity to become radio producers for the day. 

25 schools across the North West were given the same brief to produce a radio advertisement on motorway road safety and Salford City Academy students produced a range of creative and informative ads highlighting the dangers of crossing motorways.  The project saw the students working alongside media technicians to write scripts, produce sound and edit, all on board the media bus.

Key 103 judged the competition entries in January 2010 and confirmed Salford City Academy had been picked as one of three winners.  The students involved were invited to the Key 103 studios in Manchester to see their adverts produced professionally and then played on air to be heard by thousands of people across Manchester. 

To top that, Key 103 promised the ‘top secret' pop act to visit the school as part of a prize-winning ceremony to be staged at the academy. 

Stuart Moss, Director of Applied Learning says "The competition not only gave our students the opportunity to work alongside media professionals but also for the whole academy to enjoy the rewards! The link we've established with Key 103 has great long-term benefits as we can educate, and give our students opportunities, in this industry."