My daughter is a born and bred Londoner, and as she grows, we’ve found more and more things in London to enjoy. It’s really the city for everyone. However, there are some attractions that seem to have a timeless quality, whatever age you are, and one such place is Madame Tussauds.
If you are a teen in 2018, the chances are you like Instagram and following all your favourite celebs. Therefore, the absolute joy of running around Madame Tussauds and getting selfies with all your faves like Kim K, Meghan and Harry and Zalfie is TOTAL LOLS.
With the selfie obsession out of the way, there is also some great education to be had at Madame Tussauds. Whilst there on our last visit, we were invited after all the crowds had gone home for a little tour and then we met with the education department. I didn’t even realise they had an education department, but they do and they’re pretty impressive.
In a world where news comes at us thick and fast, from multiple sources, we all need to be savvy to what Fake News is. And where better to learn than from the celebrity-based attraction, a pretty great place for fake news and teens learning about it.
Joanne Channon, Education Manager at Merlin Entertainments, said: “The dissemination of false information through the media both online and across social media can be incredibly confusing and challenging for young people. Out of the classroom learning is proven to be highly effective in helping to stimulate young minds while boosting student’s social skills such as confidence, creativity and communication. We believe our new workshop will inspire students this academic year and we hope it will have a positive impact on how they interact with modern media in the future.”
The workshop introduces the children to various writing techniques that help build an article and can then push it in to the realms of fake news as oppose to a reliable news article. It also focused on the why people create such articles and how the public are duped and why the original writer may benefit.
Britney wins the Nobel Peace Prize! Or does she?
We were then set the task of writing our own article for our fellow students to guess whether it was real or fake. The teen and I came up with an article saying Ariana Grande was quitting stardom to work in McDonalds. Neither party had given a statement, but someone anonymously had snapped her outside The Golden Arches … I’ll let you decide if it was real or fake.
The workshop is aimed at 9-13 year olds, with, I think, Y5/6 gaining the maximum benefit from the workshop. That said, my teen LOVES Madame Tussaud and for a trip alone to see the waxworks would thrill any young teen group.
The new ‘Fake News and the Media’ lesson can be booked as part of Madame Tussauds London’s schools package. This includes such benefits as a 40% saving on tickets and free Teacher Resource Packs. For more information please visit Madame Tussauds Education
