Demetri - First Soap Opera Treatment - The Staff Room

‘The Staff Room’ is a Soap Opera based around the lives of people working at Wintervalley Secondary School, a place known by most for its controversy and poor reputation. Although there is a variety of staff featured, we have three main characters that the storylines will be based upon.

Our first main character is Jonathon Moore, a white Caucasian man in his late thirties who is the Headteacher at Wintervalley. Being the head teacher, Jonathan is a powerful person who’s often slandered for his decisions; he’s often in local newspapers for the issues surrounding the school. He is liked by few and is considered more of a tyrant than a head teacher. Our second main character is Carl Clark, a Black male in his early twenties who works as a peer mentor. Carl is a well known figure in the school; he works closely with the students and is often trying to resolve of any drama that goes on between students, as well as staff. Our third main character is Jane Smith, a white Caucasian woman in her mid thirties. Jane is the head of the English department at Wintervalley and is considered to be ridiculously strict, not a good teacher and someone who doesn’t deserve their position in the school. Jane is surrounded by controversies and although there has never been evidence, just denial she is said to have had affairs with other teachers in the school. Our three main characters all share business relationships with each other and are the catalysts for plots that contain deception, confrontation, affairs, gossip and other Soap Opera conventions.

In more detail, Wintervalley Secondary School is in South London (although the actual set of the program will be in a location in North London), it is set in 2010. The time zone of the program will be the same as the time zone of its target audience to add to the shows realism. The target audience is 16-24 year olds, both male and female who come from working class backgrounds in London, England. A description of my typical viewer will be a male who’s in Year 11, studying for his GCSE’s at his Secondary school. Being a student himself, viewing a program like this he will be at some sort of understanding with some of the shows elements and for that reason will relate and enjoy the show more.

The channel I’ve chosen my program to be shown on is E4, I chose E4 because it is often associated with programs watched by younger audiences and this is a show that will be seen mainly by teenagers. E4 to me seems like the perfect channel for it, although E4 doesn’t have many Soap Operas this will be something different and I’m hoping the mixture of different elements I have here will be successful in attracting a variety of audiences. I’ve chosen the viewing time for the show to be 10.00 pm, past watershed as the program will contain some sexual references and mild violence. The frequency is 3 times a week, it will be shown on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ve chosen it to be 3 times because each week will have 3 episodes based around one of the 3 characters storylines, then the next week will have 3 episodes on another characters storyline.
The first episode of the staff room will begin at the heart of a Police investigation involving our main characters; a gang of year 11 Wintervalley students have been linked to the near-death of a student in the lower years. Reports suggest that the students notoriously bullied the student for some time, right under the noses of our main characters. Police interviews to get to the bottom of this devastating affair play as an introduction to our main characters as well as setting the scene for this drama-ridden school. The first episode will contain intense drama as small detail involving the affair are revealed, at the end of the episode a revelation is made that a member of staff may have been behind all of this. The episode ends on a strong cliff hanger that will want the viewers wanting more.
The episodes in the coming weeks will focus on the issue at hand; whilst more is revealed on who is behind the assault of this student and why, within a few episodes the issue will be a door to other problems until eventually each character has their own parallel storyline. Each storyline will most of the time be linked to that of another characters. Problems such as the school being monitored, close to being shut down; and key characters having their work careers compromised will be common.