Horizon: Is Seeing Believing

Horizon explores the strange and wonderful world of illusions - and reveals the tricks they play on our senses and why they fool us.

We show how easy it is to trick your sense of taste by changing the colours of food and drink, explain how what you see can change what you hear, and see just how unreliable our sense of colour can be.

But all this trickery has a serious purpose. It's helping scientists to create a new understanding of how our senses work - not as individual senses, but connected together.

It holds the intriguing possibility that one sense could be mapped into another. This is what happened to Daniel Kish, who lost his sight as a child. He is now able to create a vision of the world by clicking his tongue which allows him to echolocate like a bat.

And in a series of MRI scans, scientists are now looking to find out if Daniel's brain may have actually rewired itself enabling him to use sound to create a visual image of the world.

BBC2 18th October 2010. 60 minutes

All Our Working Lives: Coal

The story of the British coal mining industry, told with rare archive and interviews with the people who worked in it. The programme features the original 1980s documentary on the industry, followed by a new film which brings the story of our coal mines right up to date.

BBC4. 18th October 2010. 90 minutes

All Our Working Lives: Shipbuilding

The story of the British shipbuilding industry, told with rare archive and interviews with the people who worked in it. The programme features the original 1980s documentary on the industry, followed by a new film which brings the story of our shipyards right up to date.

BBC4. 10th October 2010. 90 minutes

War Walks: The Battle of Naseby

In 1645, Charles I lost his struggle against parliament during the decisive crash of the English Civil War. Professor Richard Holmes follows the campaign that led to the Battle of Naseby, starting at the king's headquarters in Oxford. On the battlefield itself he is able to touch the past, as metal detectors unearth musket balls buried for more than 350 years. Members of the Sealed Knot Civil War Reconstruction Society demonstrate the lethal power of the musket and the pike.

BBC4 6th October 2010 30 minutes

Kids in Care

Since the case of Baby P, there has been a 40% increase in the number of children taken into care by the state. There are now 70,000 children being 'looked after' in the system. What happens to them? Can the system offer them a better life?

Panorama follows children in the care of Coventry Social Services for six months to find out if the state can be a real parent - even though children in care are more at risk of failing school and committing crime than any other group.

Narrated by Samantha Morton, who herself grew up in care.

BBC1 5th October 2010 60 minutes

Horizon: Death of the Oceans

Sir David Attenborough reveals the findings of one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time - an investigation into what is happening to our oceans. He looks at whether it is too late to save their remarkable biodiversity.

Horizon travels from the cold waters of the North Atlantic to the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef to meet the scientists who are transforming our understanding of this unique habitat. Attenborough explores some of the ways in which we are affecting marine life - from over-fishing to the acidification of sea water.

The film also uncovers the disturbing story of how shipping noise is deafening whales and dolphins, affecting their survival in the future.

BBC2 4th October 2010 60 minutes

Classroom Experiment

In this two-part series, theory and practice meet head on as education expert Professor Dylan Wiliam sets up an experimental school classroom. For one term, he takes over a Year 8 class at a secondary comprehensive to test simple ideas that he believes could improve the quality of our children's education.

His first radical technique is to ban hands up when the teacher asks a question and instead choose students at random. The idea is to get everyone in the class to engage, not just the handful of students who usually participate. The change though is met with resistance as both teachers and students have to break habits of a lifetime.

The challenge only increases when he asks the school to organise ten minutes of daily exercise for the pupils. It becomes apparent that trying to get 24 teenagers to turn up early for a burst of PE is going to be no mean feat.

Part 2

Some of the higher ability students are not responding well to the new rule of No Hands Up in class, and Wiliam is worried they are at risk of being left behind.

There is a classroom revolt when the teachers remove grades from work. The idea is to make the students actually read the comments on their work in order to help them improve, but they are left confused and angry after becoming so used to the traditional grading system.

By the end of term, however, even Wiliam is surprised by the impact the experiment has had on the students' academic achievement.

BBC 27-28 September 2010. 2 x 60 minutes