Industry News
Filmmaker calls for passion to be put back into teaching
Posted on 11th April 2008
British filmmaker Mike Leigh has said that "passion and conviction" must be put back into teaching.
Speaking to the Times Educational Supplement (TES) Mr Leigh, whose credits include Secrets And Lies and Abigail's Party, said that the "prescriptive and formulaic" formula of the National Curriculum interfered with passionate teaching.
The celebrated filmmaker's new film Happy-Go-Lucky, set for release next week, tells the story of a primary school teacher in London.
This will be Mr Leigh's first film on the subject of education. "I suppose my notion of education is that you are only as good as your teacher," he told TES magazine.
Last month, the Telegraph reported a call from the National Association of Head Teachers to replace the current national curriculum with a new model that would be "skills and competence-based, rather than prescriptive and knowledge-based".
The shake-up could see pupils attending combined humanities classes and spending more time learning about issues such as global warming and healthy living.