I heart Film Education

Home ed outing to see the cinematic loveliness that is Hugo.

Courtesy of the even lovelier Film Education, to whom all thanks and no brickbats are due for allowing the home educating brigands to come down from the mountains where they are living in tribal huts and throwing spears, to take part in the superb National Schools Film Week. 

I have not a bad word to say about the Film Education people, even though I bet they were hissing forth a froth of choice words to describe us as a bunch of ingrate anarchist hippy home ed gits, especially after the provocation we gave them, when they had to issue a public disclaimer on their website that they were not, as suggested, a bunch of bastards with a covert anti-home ed, school-centred policy which probably hid an agenda to take over the planet and establish the New World Order.

I did not find this at all! I simply booked seats online for our straggling home ed group and voila! The seats are ours! I can only thank the Film Education people heartily, and give them my big gritty kiss for letting us come to see fantastic free films!

So I am only just saying that yes, the website is a tad schoolie when you go to it, and yes, I understand how this can look a little scary and off-putting to us home educators. I know it only seems like we are being excluded, when in truth we're not, so I'm just saying that given how we are not teachers but parents, of course it would be refreshing to read invitations to study film not within the curriculum but without it, and not with resources suitable for key stage and learning experiences, or have the teaching nailed so exactly between our eyeballs, but that it would be comforting to know how our choice is supported; that film education can take place out of school, that film study can be engaging and inspiring all for its own sake, and because there are some great stories out there to visually knock us all human beings for six while we sit in the seats at the side of the school party.

There. Just saying.

xx