Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop

Fake News is everywhere, but do you know how to spot it? We visited a Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop to find out what it’s all about.

The Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop is an educational trip for KS2 & KS3 children. As the title suggests, it’s a workshop which goes through stories showing how to spot ‘fake news’.

Suitable for classes of up to 30 children, it is held within a room at Madame Tussauds which can also be used as a lunch space before or after the workshop. There are two workshops a day at 11.00 and 2.30.

Across the Merlin attractions, places like SeaLife or places like Chessington Zoo have obvious educational elements. So what does the Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop involve?

H, Kim and Kanye at Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop

You read a (fake) news article which you analyse and break down. Does the news have an official source quoting it? Is there an expert who has offered advice? What is the source of the story? As an adult I often have trouble knowing which articles are real and which are spoofs beyond the obvious ones. As we said on the night, the real headlines are starting to sound like spoof pages – how is someone H’s age (9) going to work it all out?

This workshop helps give you the tools to work it out. There are so many aspects of news – it isn’t just our newspapers these days. Everyone has a part to play if they’re active and have an opinion in some way that they want to share.

Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop - The Differences

The second part of the workshop had several members of staff holding words which are relevant to places which share news. From blogging, vlogging and more, there was a lot to talk about. It was an eye opener for H, she’s asked a lot of questions about this blog since. I’ve been able to reassure her that I don’t break the news on here!

Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop, learning about fake news

After that we had to think of our own fake news story in groups, with four or five different stories that we read out and discussed.

Madame Tussauds Fake News Goalkeepers Flossing

See the photo for ours – a scurrilous rumour that Hugo Lloris had taken up flossing in goal recently, and that the craze was spreading amongst Premiership goalkeepers, particularly during penalties. That’ll be the Fortnite flossing, not the dental kind. Hashtag #goalkeepersflossing

We read our article and everyone had to spot how it was fake, and base it on what we learned. Reading it back, it was obviously fake and quite often it’s difficult to tell if the story is real or not – especially as the real world media seems to be turning into the Daily Mash every other day.

Information about Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop can be found here.

Of course, you can’t visit Madame Tussauds without seeing some of the waxworks. As we were the only people there it was quite eerie at times; the waxworks looked so real!

Madame Tussauds various

Here’s a selection of the shots H went for. Being nine she didn’t know everyone, but said “ooooh! I want a selfie – who is this?” when spotting Kim and Kanye. Of course she got a Harry and Meghan shot too. The icing on the cake was when we found Henry VIII – her homework that weekend was to write a fact file. It was accompanied with a photo!

Madame Tussauds various

We attended the Madame Tussauds Fake News Workshop and got to wander around Madame Tussauds, all opinions are our own. 

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