Film a 'key player' in innovative education

Educational resources are beginning to take on a variety of forms, and now schools are turning to new and exciting practices in order to engage with disadvantaged pupils.

Film in particular is able to drive forward productivity among learners, and a roundtable discussion held by the Guardian earlier this month alongside Filmclub, a division of the new charity Film Nation UK, examined this potential.

It was decided that film, and by extension video learning, can help to establish an emotional connection in education and this could be especially beneficial to disabled and vulnerable children.

According to Samantha Evenson, who runs film clubs at two primary schools, she meets kids from deprived backgrounds who have no books at home and are only confident when it comes to talking about film. 

This shows how traditional face-to-face methods are gradually becoming outdated, and Ms Evenson noted: "With a book, they may think they don't have the level of experience needed or feel they aren't bright enough to talk about it."

Currently, film clubs are running in more than 7,000 schools nationwide and are allowing around 220,000 young people to discuss various titles, developing their critical skills and giving them the confidence to contribute their opinions.

Pupils can access a catalogue of DVDs and online learning guides linked to their curriculum, as well as internet tutorials on film-making and programming.

Some members of the roundtable panel agreed that the skills and teaching techniques employed during film club have overlapped into the standard school curriculum, such as using videos from movies to introduce certain topics or asking pupils to devise animation storyboards.

Moving forward, Film Nation UK is hoping to develop these methods further and provide teachers with both face-to-face and online training so that they are making the most of the resources at their disposal.

Noel Goodwin, an education programmer for young people at the British Film Institute, commented: "There will be more and more jobs out there that involve the creation of digital content and require basic film-making techniques."