There is a real challenge to writing for children. They’re a tough crowd that love to laugh so you’d better be funny.
From our creation in 2000 91Èȱ¬ Writersroom has regularly teamed up with development and production teams on the two 91Èȱ¬ children's channels (CBeebies and C91Èȱ¬), 91Èȱ¬ 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 91Èȱ¬ 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. Our work with 91Èȱ¬ 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.
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91Èȱ¬ Scotland Learning - Audio Stories for Young Listeners
91Èȱ¬ Writersroom in Scotland partnered up with 91Èȱ¬ 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’s mental health, partnered with 91Èȱ¬ Radio Scotland with two audio pieces from members of our Scottish Voices. Find out more. -
Class Dismissed is a C91Èȱ¬ sketch series which offered writers the unique opportunity to submit sketches that would be considered for their new series. Five writers were commissioned
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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 C91Èȱ¬ 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 C91Èȱ¬ as M.I. High. The successful show ran for seven series between 2007-2014 and is available to watch on 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer. -
New Voices
This very successful scheme was run in partnership with 91Èȱ¬ Childrens from 2020-22 (with support from ScreenSkills) with the aim of widening and diversifying the pool of writing talent on 91Èȱ¬ 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 C91Èȱ¬ 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 C91Èȱ¬ through a meeting we had to discuss writers. Her calling card script was recommended to the C91Èȱ¬ 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’s first original TV show and it became an instant hit for C91Èȱ¬ when the first series aired in 2012, eventually running for five series. It was discovered by C91Èȱ¬ through an open call talent search run by 91Èȱ¬ Writersroom in 2009, looking for original children’s 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 C91Èȱ¬. -
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 91Èȱ¬ Writersroom's open call talent search in 2009.