To be a bit pissed that ds1 has been watching shrek on the first 2 days of school?

[Phantomteadrinker]

I genuinely don't know if iabu or not so interested in opinions...

Ds1 went into year 1 yesterday and told me today that for the past 2 afternoons, they have been watching shrek. We have received a letter saying that the whole school is doing an 'at the movies' project but the only information is that there will be a junk filled feast for them all next week.

I'm no fan of the school, it was not one of our choices and its a school that has many social problems and struggles with very poor attendance. Whilst I get that there should be a balance with fun and learning,watching kids films on the first days of term is not filling me with confidence for the coming year. Am I missing something or does the whole thing sound like a massive cop out...?

Massive cop out.

end of term I would probably not care but our school tends to have a start as you mean to go on attitude and that wouldn't include shrek and junk food.

Go in, ask them about it. Maybe there is a reasonable explanation, maybe you will get something from the meeting which means you can continue the topic in an appropriate way at home?

'At the Movies' is not on the National Curriculum

More likely the teachers haven't got their schemes of work sorted out yet!!

Taking the piss. That is apalling.

It could be part of a visual literacy project. I know that our KS1 teachers are planning to watch Treasure Island with their classes as part of a topic.

nomore- teachers are free to decide their own topics - these are not set in the NC.

That's poor and it does not get things off on the right foot at all. I like Euphemia's suggestion. Ask for a copy of the learning outcomes and planned activities to achieve this. That will prompt some hasty scrambling, I would think.

Junk filled feast all next week? Do you mean junk food? For a whole week?

Hmm, I thought as it's during the afternoons that is usually History/Geography/PSHE time, rather than Literacy & Numeracy which are done in the morning, so I'd question whether it's really visual literacy or topic work.

That's rubbish op. Yanbu.

Have they got a lot of staff off sick? That's the only explanation I can think of!

I would go in and ask. It may be that they are watching an extract and then completing drama or other activities inspired by that extract etc.

I wouldn't mind in the last week of the summer term but it does seem odd at the beginning of the school year. Is it possible that they just watched short clips and then discussed it and did project work connected to it?

Academies can opt out of National Curriculum anyway - so they can do what they like.

end of year fine, first week in September not ok.

Doesn't Shrek have a message at the end about "It's not what you look like that matters." So could they have watched just the end and then linked it to talking about diversity/ anti bullying etc in PSHE?

My sons school did a similar project. Originally i was a bit about it but actually he learned loads. As it was topic based he did lots of different subjects with a slant. Maths was all about the costing of going to the movies, language they wrote scripts, learned about people needed to make a movie, PSE was about the moral of the story type thing. PE was even a dance routine based on a movie. The whole class loved the topic and learned loads.

Things like this have happened at ds's school in the past. gestapo techniques gently questioning ds has revealed that the teachers are having meetings to sort out the timetable; in site of having at least one training day at the start of the year.

My DC1 did watch "Shrek" in school last year, but it was on one of those end-of-term-everyone's-knackered days. Not on the first day.

visual literacy

My arse.
There is a very simple way to gauge acceptability of a school activity.
If it can be done at home for free, with minimal supervision, it generally doesn't need to be done in school.

I see a worrying amount of tv watching and computer and iPad using in the many schools I work in.

Add message | Report | Message poster Strictly1 Wed 04-Sep-13 21:49:29
I would go in and ask. It may be that they are watching an extract and then completing drama or other activities inspired by that extract etc.

^This. If they are just sitting watching shrek every afternoon YANBU but a 10 minute extract can feel like a whole film to a 5yo! Get the facts, then get cross.

I really really doubt this is as it seems. They are likely to be watching snippets and discussing various elements of story telling, characters, vocab, scene setting etc etc with a view to doing their own short play/film - a "grab their interest ploy" , not a cop out

My first reaction was but after thinking about it, they are probably trying to deal with the attendance issues from day 1. They may have only watched 45 mins each day and hope that the kids will keep coming back for more.
Finding it harder to justify the junk food thing though except for the same reason but surely they can't keep bribing the kids all year!

They may be doing fairy stories/ traditional tales. Shrek could be used as a 'grab your attention' opener for that.