to be slightly horrified a 15 film was shown to 11 year olds?

[plumandvanilla]

The film was Macbeth which they have been reading in English, but although it is Shakespeare aibu to think this is so inappropriate? Or will I be 'that parent'?

My DS year 6 ( 10) did Mcbeth at school this year... I would not be happy with him been shown a 15.

Our School asks permission for children to to watch PG films so I am quite surprised yours hasn't for a 15

Btw to whoever said it, I don't think the untrustworthy Ross bit is a liberty. I am a bit obsessed with Ross and have tracked his every line! He know everything and is everywhere! He says 'what sights, my Lord', asks Macduff if he is going to Scone, tells Lady Macduff she is about to be attacked, scarpers, then tells Macduff every detail.... hmmm.... he is then not in the Birnam Wood scenes. He passes on almost every bit of news.

Shakespeare meant him to be shady...

Also a teacher here, although not English. I would not be happy if my Y7 DC were shown a 15 film at school. Even more perplexed about why they are doing Macbeth in Y7. I wonder if the teacher is NQT?

Even more perplexed about why they are doing Macbeth in Y7.

This is fairly standard. We do Macbeth in year 7, and a lot of the kids have already studied extracts in primary. It's considered a good choice as it holds their attention, particularly the boys.

Ha possibly Piggywaspushed! It's all a bit in yer face in Polanski though.

Pengwynn - I wouldn't choose it for 11yos either. They'll enjoy it much more a bit later. I generally do 12th Night with y7. Not that there isn't some stuff both dark & filthy going on there if you look for it.

But I disagree that the bits you think inappropriate are dubious. It's an interpretation & a clever one. If anything a bit too slick in its endless procession of visual puns & allusions.

But I have taught it to y8s (so 12-13) & they get it, & they love it.

My 13yo son is currently obsessed with 'impossible windows' in The Shining. We're a family of film geeks & I'm quite relaxed about age certificates.

In school, though, I make it my rule not to piss off parents if there isn't a good reason to do so.

I recently had a complaint about Private Peaceful for y7 because of a brief, teenage kiss. I entirely accept that it's inadvisable to annoy parents by showing stuff out of age range. Mostly because a) you might genuinely upset a student but, also b) there will be That Parent. Do not poke That Parent without jolly good cause is teaching 101.

There we agree Pengwynn .

Can't agree to just teaching Macbeth for the plot & revisiting later though. That really does seem pointless. & awfully dull.

If you're going to teach Shakespeare, you teach the language.

Otherwise it's like teaching Beethoven through the medium of ringtones. The language is really the reason for doing it at all.

peng where on earth does it say that things should be done twice? Genuinely confused... The Nat Curric definitely use to require the study of two different Shakespeare texts at Ks3 and 4. I work in the three tier system and it drives us up the wall that they keep doing our GCSE set texts in years 7 and 8!! Most notably Romeo and Juliet (because films) and A Christmas Carol (because at least three films and it's Christmassy)

It can do more harm than good!

Yes, exactly.

My current school did Macbeth two years ago in y8. Fine. We've since switched to The Tempest because someone had done a lovely SOW & we all fancied a change.

We've also switched IGCSE spec & now current y10s are doing Macbeth, again. No one - students or teaching staff - can get very excited about this!

One good argument for saving Macbeth for KS4, I suppose.

Luckily I've managed to ringfence Richard III & Othello for IB.

Although both do work really well for about y9...

IME Macbeth is one of the go to Shakespeare texts for children. I don’t know enough about all the others to know why it’s preferred but it certainly is - maybe it’s thought to be boy-friendly? DS had studied Macbeth twice and Othello once before he reached his teens. Out of curiosity I just asked him whether he’d been shown any film versions and apparently they showed the animated Macbeth and snippets of “one with lots of assault rifles” which Google suggests is a BBC version with Patrick Stewart, and which possibly justifies my assumption that Macbeth is boy-friendly .

School has previously rung me up at work to check that I was OK with him being shown a 12A when he was 11 3/4 so I wasn’t really expecting his answer to be “the one with all the nudes and the shagging”.

I have just done Macbeth with a class of year 10 girls who really enjoyed Macbeth . You are right though that it is assumed boys will like it. I fond boys actually like Romeo and Juliet because of the fights. Girls like Macbeth because Lady Macbeth is so compelling and the other real influences on actions are (arguably) female witches.

they were finding the Fassbender dull today though.

So, trying not to be a GF, I’m genuinely interested here...

Why is it inappropriate to watch an accurate adaptation of a text but not inappropriate to read the unedited text itself? Surely if you’re unhappy about the showing of the adaptation then you should be unhappy about the teaching of the text?

I never studied Macbeth at school because of this film. Other classes (year 9 in new money) had done it earlier in the year, and a father, a local vicar, had objected to the nudity. So our class did The Taming of the Shrew instead. I would have much preferred Macbeth.

We watched the whole film, but a few scenes at a time, as we worked through the play. I don't remember any parent being asked to give permission.

MacBeth, the play deals with 15-18 rated themes. If he’s considered old enough to read it then he’s old enough to watch it performed.

Pinky, there's a world of difference between reading about a murder and actually seeing that murder performed.

I'd go even further & say there is a difference often between seeing something on stage & filmed with potential close ups & more detail.

We don't watch films that are not suitable for their ages. I know many people allow their children to play violent games and watch violent films. It is part of the desensitisation of our children. I would be concerned if permission was not asked before showing a film or at least directing parents to the site. It appears I am in the minority. I honestly don't mind being 'that parent' and saying something. How will teachers know that there are other opinions or bring to question the decision or challenge them to find another solution?

It feels like other parents are putting a lot of peer pressure on other parents to conform.

PinkyBlunder - because the text would originally have been acted by fully clothed actors onstage. The violence is implied - as it would have been in classical Greek tragedy - a lot if it e.g. the murder of Duncan is offstage (Macbeth follows a hallucinatory dagger offstage to do the dastardly deed, Lady M comes on & does her speech, Macbeth returns with dripping daggers).

Polanski has Macbeth vigorously stabbing Duncan & claret everywhere .

Also, the afore mentioned witches - Shakespeare had 3, & onstage they'd be around a fairly rudimentary prop cauldron talking about the horrible ingredients that are going in - there's a stillborn baby 'ditch delivered by a drab' etc. Polanski has a cave full of naked witches, mostly older actresses. Like a WI calendar but with the bits out!

It's arguable that you could read the text, fine, but all the gore & wrinkly bums are too much for under 15s.

I disagree, but agree with PPs that it's safest to give parents a heads up & opportunity to withdraw their dc from those lessons. I've always done this & it's definitely best practice.

A single act such as a killing, can be portrayed in any number of ways. That's the role of the director etc. It is possible to depict the killing in a non graphic way which is still consistent with the text but meets pg or even u rating. Graphic and gruesome interpretations would warrant a higher rating.

PinkyBlunder would you be happy for your 4 year old to watch a film of a doe being slaughtered? Blood, guts disembowelment, the works? Probably not, but Bambi might be ok? Same event but portrayed differently.

The violence is not implied in Shakespeare. Right at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet two ex-soldiers are talking about raping little girls / virgins. In MacBeth MacDonalwald was cut open from the nave to the chops, and Macbeth then goes onto kill so many innocents. In many ways it is better to see this in a movie rather than imagine it, as some of the descriptions in the text are awful and the movies often downplay it.

FeistyColl I would actually if it didn’t bother her. I’m very much of the mind that we can talk about what we see with honesty. If something she’s seen has upset her or it was something she didn’t understand, I’d rather talk openly and honestly about it with her rather than hide it.

I’m personally not buying the arguments of text vs adaptation here but maybe I have an overactive imagination as a child/teenager, I remember being disturbed by more books that were ‘age apprpriate’ than films that were deemed not.