Award-winning Inverkeithing pupil launches digital media initiative

Two Inverkeithing High School pupils recently hosted the opening of the Media House, a digital media facility ‘for pupils, run by pupils’.

Depute head boy Lewis Phillips has been managing the school’s Media Network since launching it as a first year pupil, an initiative that earned him prestigious ICT awards.

Now in his sixth year, he has set up the Media House – a place to create content, attend pupil-run workshops and hold meetings – to ensure the project continues when he passes the mantle to S4 pupil David Simpson.

Attending the event, Dunfermline MSP Bill Walker said, “I was very pleased to receive Lewis’s invite to the Media House launch. It’s impossible not to be impressed with the sheer dedication and initiative he has put into this project.

“Lewis has motivated pupils to get involved in creating media content, which will help them learn valuable skills. A lot of pupils from the primary schools in my constituency attend Inverkeithing, so it’s good to know they will have this opportunity for hands’ on involvement in the project, as well as benefiting from the user-end experience of an excellent pupil-created media resource.

“Lewis and David were great hosts today. They are clearly skilled and ambitious, and I wish them both success with their continuing education and future careers.”

In 2012, Lewis became the first pupil to be nominated for a Naace Impact Award, which he went on to win. He was also the first pupil to be shortlisted for the prestigious ICT Visionary Times Education Award and won a Special Award for his Contribution to Technology in Education at the Times Education Awards.

He delivered two 45 minute presentations at BETT, the world’s largest educational technology conference, on The Story of the IHS Media Network.

Bill Walker MSP and Cllr Dave Dempsey, Fife Council Conservative Leader, attend the Media House launch in the library of Inverkeithing High School