There is a real challenge to writing for children. They鈥檙e a tough crowd that love to laugh so you鈥檇 better be funny.
From our creation in 2000 大象传媒 Writersroom has regularly teamed up with development and production teams on the two 大象传媒 children's channels (CBeebies and C大象传媒), 大象传媒 Learning and to seek out and offer tangible opportunities to the best new writing talent. Children's programmes offer one of the best ways for new writers to gain their first broadcast credits.
Commissioned programmes that have resulted from our work with 大象传媒 Children's include Wolfblood, The Worst Year of My Life Again, Spirit Warriors and MI High.
We have run several initiatives for shows including Class Dismissed, Gigglebiz and The Dumping Ground which have given writers the opportunity to submit sketches and get commissioned. 大象传媒 with 大象传媒 Children's continued more recently with our successful 2020/21 New Voices scheme.
More successes in Children's
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Hear from five writers: Bryce Hart, Joanne Lau, Marissa Lestrade, Seyi Odusanya and Karen Reed. -
大象传媒 Scotland Learning - Audio Stories for Young Listeners
大象传媒 Writersroom in Scotland partnered up with 大象传媒 Learning Scotland in creating a series of brand new audio stories for young listeners. Hear from the producer and some of the writers involved. -
Children in Need
Our team in Wales has worked closely with Children in Need with writer Daf James placed with the Roots Foundation in Swansea and Tim James with GISDA in North Wales. The A Million & Me project, focussing on supporting children鈥檚 mental health, partnered with 大象传媒 Radio Scotland with two audio pieces from members of our Scottish Voices. Find out more. -
Class Dismissed is a C大象传媒 sketch series which offered writers the unique opportunity to submit sketches that would be considered for their new series. Five writers were commissioned -
The Dumping Ground - Shadow Scheme
Christine Robertson explains how she went from being a member of our Comedy Room writer development group to taking part in The Dumping Ground shadow scheme and gaining her first episode commission. -
M.I.High
M.I.High was created by Keith Brumpton who entered our Story 2k2 competition for northern writers. His script was shortlisted and he was subsequently invited to a C大象传媒 writers' day, where he pitched an idea called Spy Chix. His idea impressed everyone involved and he was encouraged to develop it further. After teaming up with independent production company Kudos, it was commissioned by C大象传媒 as M.I. High. The successful show ran for seven series between 2007-2014 and is available to watch on 大象传媒 iPlayer. -
New Voices
This very successful scheme was run in partnership with 大象传媒 Childrens from 2020-22 (with support from ScreenSkills) with the aim of widening and diversifying the pool of writing talent on 大象传媒 Childrens' scripted shows. It has resulted in 37 script commissions to date, with hopefully more to come! -
Spirit Warriors
Spirit Warriors ran for ten episodes on C大象传媒 in 2010. It was the first British television drama series to have a predominantly East Asian cast. It was created by Jo Ho who came to the attention of C大象传媒 through a meeting we had to discuss writers. Her calling card script was recommended to the C大象传媒 development team; Spirit Warriors was the eventual result of the conversation that began when they invited her in for a meeting to discuss her ideas on the basis of her script. -
Wolfblood
Wolfblood was writer Debbie Moon鈥檚 first original TV show and it became an instant hit for C大象传媒 when the first series aired in 2012, eventually running for five series. It was discovered by C大象传媒 through an open call talent search run by 大象传媒 Writersroom in 2009, looking for original children鈥檚 TV drama scripts. Debbie was one of eight writers who were selected and made it through to an intensive development week, and as a result received mentoring which led to Wolfblood being developed, commissioned and produced by C大象传媒. -
The Worst Year of My Life... Again!
Mark Brotherhood's 2014 show was commissioned and co-produced by ACTF in Australia as a result of 大象传媒 Writersroom's open call talent search in 2009.