To think this is stupid in an English lesson in year 7?

[justmeandmeandonlyme]

My daughter who is 11 years old in year 7 has told me she has been watching hunger games in her English lesson. She said she was nearly crying because of the people dying in it ( I have watched the full series Of hunger games Myself) and she thought it was real.. she is only 11 bad doesn’t watch things like that at home. But am I being unreasonable to think this is not even remotely educational in an english lesson??? I just don’t see how watching a film like that is going to teach kids anything apart from how to sit and cry at a film?

HG is violent and disturbing, I was totally taken by the movie. DH was 9 when he heard about it at school and he read the books, I read them with him and we talked through things, and he watched the movies once he'd finish a book. He has been an avid reader of science fiction and dystopia since and deciding to let him read the books and watch the movies was the right decision. They should know, and they do know, what is real and not real. But talking about it with your daughter would be a very good idea. Have you read the books?

When I was young it was all about Star Wars movies. In which a brother and sister fall in love and a father wants to kill his son...

Dd3 is only 11 but she would have been very concerned if one of her classmates didn't realise it was a film does you dd not read books??

I think you're wrong to focus on the material.

Anything can be an educational 'text' for an English lesson. One of the best lessons I ever had was on advertising, where my (brilliant, wonderful, inspirational) high school English teacher got us to analyse the ways in which we were being manipulated by the language of things like pizza leaflets and commercials. We looked at things like how men's and women's deodorant ads focused on completely different things.

The Hunger Games could be used in hundreds of different ways to illustrate a point or to teach kids something about characters, gender storytelling, point of view.... It is what the teacher does with the material, not the material itself, that matters.

Also, I think an 11 year old who doesn't realise a film isn't real might have a bit of a problem. I don't mean that snippily - I mean that it's something I'd expect a younger child to be able to understand. Is she banned from fiction at home or something?

And yeah if they are doing dystopian fiction the Hunger Games is a great way in for kids.

Huxley/Orwell et al are very wordy and might not sustain a younger kids attention, whereas HG is a very popular franchise, written for kids, with a handy film series to boot.

Plus it's a 12A- the A means it is suitable for under 12s (are people still so clueless about film ratings??!) so long as there is an adult.

We watched the Leo DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet in English.
That had guns and everything!

Well it's on the year 7 reading list. As is the Diary of Anne Frank, War Horse, Watership Down, the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and the Book Thief.

God knows how your DD is going to cope with those.

You could call and ask for the lesson plan which will contain the objectives

I would be very surprised if you were allowed access that, any of my planning work will have reference to differentiation and varying needs of pupils.

I can definitely understand using a film as a stimulus for work - it all depends on what exactly the focus is. If you're really concerned OP, just call and ask.

And really it's no different to when I was in school and we read and watched the Lord of the Flies.

Plus it's a 12A- the A means it is suitable for under 12s (are people still so clueless about film ratings??!) so long as there is an adult.

Incorrect. 12A and 12 mean the same thing "not generally suitable for children under the age of 12"

And whiskyowl makes an excellent point, about what can be educational material- we did similar lessons with property ads in conjunction with reading the Woman in Black!

It might not have even been about the content, it might have been a lesson on story building or character development.

Plus god yeah, wait till she gets to the Woman in Black (I hope it's still on the syllabus!) used to be a rite of passage to go see the incredibly scary, jumpy stage show at about the age of 12!

12A means a child must have an adult with them in the cinema and it's up to the adult to decide if it's suitable. 12 is 12 and up. They're not the same

12a is only used in cinemas, anyone under 12 but accompanied by an adult can watch it but it doesn't mean it's necessarily suitable.

Cross post with dame

Ds was scared by TWIB,they watched the the film at school. I think that was ridiculous to show that tbh.

Showing a 12A film is acceptable for Y7 as they will be 12 during the academic year. I have read thebook with and used extracts from the film with Y7 without any problems.

In the nicest possible way OP, she is in high school now and needs to toughen up.

Hunger games is fiction, if she is finding it hard I’d be very worried about how she’s going to handle lessons in the future, topics such as slavery and the holocaust.

I'm sorry that your daughter was upset OP, it can't be nice to have something like that thrust on you when you're not used to watching things like that. But I honestly can't understand how anyone would watch something like the Hunger Games and think it was a real life documentary.

And it's not unusual (or at least it wasn't when I went to school) to watch the film adaptation of a book before or after we had read it.

YABU. Previous posters have explained what 12A actually means. Plus of course, even if it did mean 12 and over, year 7s turn 12 during the school year, some of them already are. I doubt any of them will undergo a sudden ability to cope with more adult films overnight when they turn 12. And some who are still 11 may well be more mature than others who are already 12. My dd has just started yr 8. Many of her friends were reading Hunger Games last year - it's very popular with that age group.

Not seen the film of WiB.
The stage show was absolutely terrifying though.
30 giggling kids suddenly and dramtically silenced....30 pale faces in the dark as screams eminate from the back of the theatre and carriage noise effects sweep past you down the aisle!

Aaah happy memories!

12 rated films are not suitable for children under 12 but may be viewed by children under 12 if they are accompanied by an adult aged over 18. Which I assume the teacher is, so there's no rules broken there. HG is a great example of so many things I can see why it's on the curriculum, it's not odd or stupid at all OP. I also think you might need to spend some time discussing with your daughter the differences between fiction and real-life/documentaries as children can generally tell the difference by an age younger than 11.

Eolian I agree with you but it is worth noting that there is no such things as a 12A DVD

12 rated films are not suitable for children under 12 but may be viewed by children under 12 if they are accompanied by an adult aged over 18. Which I assume the teacher is, so there's no rules broken there

That's for the cinema, there are no 12A DVD's, just 12's so technically if someone wanted to get all high-horsey about it, they could get the teacher into trouble for showing something to children that they are not (legally) allowed to watch.

No, sorry, I also thought you were going to say you were concerned she can't tell reality from fiction.

That's not normal even for a just turned 11 year old. I'd expect a 7 year old to be able to distinguish unless something was very realistic. Unless you mean that she only ever watches cartoons? In which case very strange.

I think your concern is misplaced.

We watched a clip from Regeneration by Pat Barker when I was doing GCSE English war poetry stuff - apparently most of the film is horrific but the clip we saw was alright.

Age ratings don't apply in the same way when a short extract of a film is shown in an educational context. It's why documentaries sometimes pass as unrated because they are educational.

I'm finding it pretty unbelievable that your DC has never heard of the hunger games in Y7.

DS studied "The boy in the striped pyjamas" and "Hamlet" in Year 7. These also have distressing themes. I suspect OP's DC may need to toughen up a bit.