DVD's at school in Year 1

[QueenVictoria11]

DS (6) has watched five full length DVD's at school in the past 2 weeks - Finding Nemo and similar. It was the same in reception and I mentioned it to class teacher who said "well it's the week before the end of term" and the Head backed her up by saying it was related to the learning.

I think it's too many, and its not what I think DS should be doing at school.

What does anyone else think? Would you mention it?

That seems a lot. My Y1 DS has watched one, I think. How does Finding Nemo relate to their learning apart from in the most tenuous way?

Emotional development- looking at feelings, relationships
Understanding the world- marine life

It's the last week of a bloody stressful term for children. Many are too hyped up to do proper work.

I'm surprised the teacher has the time

Five does seem a bit excessive. There are nice things you can do even if they are knackered, that don't take much planning for teachers who are also knackered and desperately trying to get all the end of term stuff done. We've made decorations (following written instructions so a good reading activity), paper chains (symmetrical/repeating patterns), made calendars for next year, Christmas cards etc. My lot watched a dvd this afternoon while those who had things to finish off finished off.

Did they sit down afterwards and discuss feelings and relationships in Nemo? Did they pause the DVD to identify each marine species? If not, it wasn't a learning exercise it was a pacifier.

Depending how the lesson goes, films comes under visual literacy.
Honest. Not making it up.
Even something like finding nemo.
Talking about the film is a good thing. Then you also have elements of phse, because of the relationships within the film.

When I first heard of the above I was but looking at the documentation and plans I could see where it was all coming from.

There's no discussion or follow up work as far as I know.

I know there wasn't any for "The Snowman" which they watched last week because DS finds that film very sad, and when I asked him whether his teacher talked to them about the snowman melting, he said no.

I had this issue when my son was in reception. I complained, along with a good few other parents. I'd noted he'd watched 8 movies and I was told it was for educational purposes which I knew was a load of old tosh. My son is at a different school now and during the last two weeks of this term he has so far watched four movies. Last week he told me that the three classes in his year were all crammed into one small classroom watching a movie because a teacher was off sick. They watched Nativity and then discussed it. I don't mind one movie during the run up to the end of term but not happy with them just being stuck on for the sake of it. Also, I don't get all this "the teachers are tired" we are all tired even the people who only get 28 days off from work a year.

Ds 7 is very tired. There is no way he'd learn much now so I'm not that fussed at the odd DVD, silly party games etc.

So much more they can do with the children though . Even simply colouring in Christmas pictures etc.

Also, I don't get all this "the teachers are tired" we are all tired even the people who only get 28 days off from work a year.

Teachers are fucking knackered at this point of the year. It's been a very long 8 week term. The difference between teaching and a lot of other jobs (not all) is that term time is very intense, on a stage from 9-3:30 every day with hours of work in the evening and at weekends. When I worked in the 'real' world, yes there were deadlines, but by god I didn't get as slowly ground to a husk as I do by a long term teaching, because I had plenty of time to relax and not do work. I could (and did) work in an office for months on end without feeling like I needed a holiday.

That said, 5 DVDs is still a lot.

Depends as well when they are shown.
We run a film club. Couple of times a week. Total time of lunch is over a hour.
Then there's after school club, one of the activities is a film.
General lunch times, there are several actives including a film, different set up to the film club.
So potentially you are talking 5
Films a week. All within non teaching time when students have choices.
As a perk of running the film club, we also blag free cinema tickets, which we used last week.
Some of our students, as part of a lunch club make films. Shown last week and this week. Then of course actual lessons include film making, these are shown to the whole school.

My DS has had two so far which Is fine. He's knackered just like the teachers and it's been utterly full on had term with school performances, fetes, theatre visits, parents evenings, charity events etc

They are shown in lesson time.

I'd take no issue with 2 films.

I understand how wearing teaching is too, how little energy teachers have and kids are tired. I'm surprised that having class watching so many movies is OK though, and Headteacher doesn't appear to mind.

That does seem excessive.
Mind, dd, who is in Yr 8 told me today, they'd watched films in 4 out of the 5 lessons. is it just me who would find it incredibly frustrating to watch 50mins of each of 4 different films, without seeing them through ?

When I was teaching infants, I'd spend time hunting down 'Christmas resources' for them to do as more relaxed, fun stuff, but not sat still watching a TV all the time - simple crosswords, wordsearches, those puzzles where you work out the sum and colour the even numbers one colour and the odd another, or drawing a picture by following the co-ordinates, etc. Used to have to make them all up ourselves too - bet that sort of stuff is all over the internet now, which would make it far easier. Chance to make cards / placemats for the party / party hats / just 'free paint' some pictures / write out bits from the Christmas story / etc. There's SO much you can do without resorting to more than 1 or 2 films.

if the teachers are so tired they can't teach, then please can we just take the kids out of school early and go on holiday with them?

flexible - I'm up for that.

Our head would come down like the wrath of god on any teacher just sticking on a DVD in the last week of term.

Sounds like far too many DVDs to me! I'm an infant teacher and we haven't watched any at all.

Year 3 here, no DVDs at all. But I wouldn't say we were doing full on lessons either.

I have no issue with DVDs in school but 5 is excessive IMO, I am sure there are other relaxing activities they could have thought of if needed.

It sounds like a lot but watching half each afternoon isn't that bad in the big scheme of things.
As someone who has spent the last fortnight in various guises feeling like I'm herding cats around with over excited and tired children I can see that after lunchtime it may be the path of last resistance. Also between christmas concerts, christmas parties and church services there isn't a huge amount of sit down learning being done anyway.

Far too many. DD in year 10 who has just finished her school year (we live in abroad) watched 4 movies in the final week, two I was happy with as they were to do with her classes, but she watched Home Alone and Grease in economics

This year DS in year 4 had one DVD on the last day of term (subject matter related to the topic they had been doing). I think that's the first time he's ever watched a DVD at school.

My child in year 1 hasn't watched any films this year ( in reception they watched a few) think they may watch one today though, I think they are all far too tired this week to do any proper work and all over excited