Smoking Ban, 1970
Have you ever smoked? How much pressure is put on you at school not to smoke? In this short news film school pupils are quizzed outside the school gates about their smoking habits, attitudes, and how far their schools discourage smoking and teach about the risk associated with cancer. The pupils display a mix of reticence, cheek, and expertise. The film was made in response to new legislation introduced in 1971 requiring health warnings to be carried on cigarette packets.
The full length film is available to view online here, via the BFI.
Two Schools, 1974
This film was produced by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), showcasing the life and work of two of its large comprehensive schools, in Merton and Camden, at a time when inner-city comprehensives were becoming targets in a national debate about falling educational standards (you can read Chris Jeppesen’s blog about this here to learn more). ‘Two Schools’ features a range of subjects, activities, pupil and teacher conversations, and classroom audio, highlighting a balance between new ‘progressive’ and traditional teaching methods in the 1970s secondary school. The narrators (the Headteachers) explain that they believe comprehensive education is about liberation, but that this is achieved as much through hard work and discipline as it is through ‘the modern trend towards freedom’.
Source: BFI
The full length film is available to view online here, via the BFI.
Westminster School, 1979
This fly-on-the-wall documentary follows life at Westminster School, a public day and boarding school housed within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and beside the Houses of Parliament. Girls had only been admitted as full members of the school a few years earlier, in 1973.