FILM
COMPETITION
Philosophical questions about
school and education
Key questions for the film
What does education mean to you?
Why is (or isn’t) education important?
What should the point of education be?
What do you think education should be like?
Other key philosophical questions
that often arise about education
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What is education for?
What should children learn?
Should everyone be made to go to school?
How should we group children?
What’s the difference between education
and schooling?
• Should schools prepare pupils for work, or
to have a good life, or something else
altogether?
What are the aims of education?
Try looking at some different types of schools and
think about what they are hoping to achieve.
On the next slides are a couple of very different
boarding schools (both are expensive though!)
What’s the atmosphere like?
What do you think that people who went to the
school are like when they leave?
Which school do you prefer?
Would you like to go there?
www.summerhillschool.co.uk
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Children don’t have to go to lessons if they don’t want to
The children and teachers decide the rules and punishments together
There is no uniform
Both girls and boys can go to this school
Have a look at their typical day:
www.summerhillschool.co.uk/typical-summerhill-day.php
www.etoncollege.com
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The school is for boys only
Pupils are expected to excel at their studies
There is an old-fashioned uniform with a top hat
Some of their pupils are royalty and others have gone on to be
Prime Ministers or high up in government
• Have a look at their military training programme:
www.etoncollege.com/CCF.aspx
What should we be learning?
• What’s your favourite subject and why?
• If you could decide what we should all learn, what
would be the most important subjects and what
would you leave out?
• Should we all learn the same things?
• Are there any things that we must all learn about,
or learn to do?
Time
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
09:00
baking /
cooking
reading
anything
you like
10:00
any type of
dancing or
gymnastics
11:00
Break
12:00
Thursday
Friday
chatting or
debating with
friends
maths puzzles
free time
indoors or
outdoors
karaoke
singing or DJ
workshop
computer
games
cycling /
skateboarding
comedy /
drama
workshops
Break
Break
Break
Break
drawing or
painting
skiing / skating
Lunch
Lunch
swimming or
volunteering
science-y stuff
watching films
making or
laser quest or
or photography building things paintballing
13:00
Lunch
14:00
archery or
circus skills
Lunch
Lunch
X-box or
writing stories
Playstation etc and poems
Is school bad for children?
• Some people think that school makes children
focus on tests and on doing what they are told
• Do you think school stops you from being creative?
• Is it good to follow rules and be compliant?
• What about things like bullying?
Is school good for children?
What do you gain from school?
How would you learn things
without school?
How would you meet different
people without school?
Outdoor Education
Most education
takes place indoors
Should we be outside
more – not just for
sports, playtime and
field trips?
Find out about
Forest Schools and
Farm Schools
What kind of
learning results
from being
outdoors?
What do people do instead
of going to school?
Some children ...
... learn at home with parents and siblings
... learn by themselves with books, computers, and
by visiting museums etc
... learn in communities
In some places, it’s hard
to provide education at all
• schools may have little money and
few resources
• some children can’t get to school
• others have to work instead
• there may not be safe schools for
them to attend
Are the aims of school the same for
these children as they are for you?
What about society?
• What should children learn in school to help
improve things for everyone?
• Should society be paying for children to go to
school or is it up to their families?
• Who knows best what children need? Is it the
children themselves, their parents, or society in
general?
What if there were no schools at all?
• What could we have instead?
• What would children do all
day?
• How could parents go to
work?
• What could we do with all the
buildings?
• What could we do with all the
teachers?!
There are lots more
questions like this you
could consider
Take a look at the
film-making pack for
information
Contact the PESGB
through SAS if you
would like some ideas
of books to read or
other websites to visit
[email protected]
Good luck with your film!