science

John Craven

John Craven is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John Craven rather than just read about it. In short: John Raymond Craven (born 16 August 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, best known for presenting the BBC programmes Newsround, Countryfile and Beat the Brain. Early life John Raymond Craven was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at Leeds Modern School.

Key takeaways

John Craven belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Craven to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Craven from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Raymond Craven (born 16 August 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, best known for presenting the BBC programmes Newsround, Countryfile and Beat the Brain.

Early life John Raymond Craven was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at Leeds Modern School. Craven's father was held as a prisoner of war in Japan for three years during the Second World War. He left school aged 16, and began an apprenticeship at Yorkshire Copperworks, writing for the company magazine.

Career Craven began his professional life in print journalism as a junior reporter on a local newspaper, the Harrogate Advertiser, before working for the Yorkshire Post and as a freelance correspondent and writer for national newspapers.

Television Craven joined the BBC staff in Newcastle upon Tyne to work on local radio and television, before moving to the BBC in Bristol in 1970. From 1972 until 1989, Craven was the eponymous host of a regular children's news programme, Newsround, originally called John Craven's Newsround. The first such programme ever produced by British television, it drew on the full journalistic resources of the BBC. It featured a number of news scoops, including the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, which occurred minutes before the programme went on air. Craven became associated with children's TV, and presented news items on other children's programmes such as Multi-Coloured Swap Shop and Saturday Superstore. Years later he also became editor of Newsround. Craven left the Newsround programme in 1989, having presented more than 3,000 episodes, and began presenting a countryside news programme, Countryfile, for the BBC. In 2015, he presented the BBC Two game show series Beat the Brain, which began airing on 11 May.

Other work In 2014, Craven took part in Gareth Malone's All Star Choir. They released a cover version of the single "Wake Me Up" in November 2014 to raise money for the BBC's Children in Need charity. The choir were filmed for a two-part documentary called Gareth's All Star Choir. It was shown on 3 and 10 November 2014 on BBC One.

Charity Craven is one of nine presidents of the Young People's Trust for the Environment. He is vice-president of the Waterways Trust and Patron of SPANA. On 10 July 2016, he was appointed as President of Radio Horton, the charitable hospital radio station for Banbury's Horton General Hospital.

Personal life Craven is married and has two daughters. He lives in Oxfordshire. Of his career, he has said he expected he would be retired at some future time rather than give up the work he liked so much.

Awards and honours In 1996, he was elected a member of the Royal Television Society, and awarded the RTS Baird Medal in 2002. He was awarded the OBE in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to rural and children's broadcasting. He is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London. In November 2011, Craven attended the British Academy Children's Awards to collect a Special Award for Newsround in recognition of its contribution to television.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Craven

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Craven claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Craven before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Craven ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Craven

In research: John Craven appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Craven in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Craven is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, English children's television presenters, English reporters and correspondents, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Craven outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John Craven in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Craven means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Craven out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Craven in simple terms?

John Raymond Craven (born 16 August 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, best known for presenting the BBC programmes Newsround, Countryfile and Beat the Brain. Early life John Raymond Craven was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at Leeds Modern School.

Why does John Craven matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Craven?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Craven.