20 reasons to love school
The Class
(Laurent Cantet, 2008)
Watch a trailer for The Class
Non-professional actors and deft, documentary-style camerawork give this portrait of a year in a tough, multicultural Paris secondary school its immediacy and potency. Cantet’s Palme d’Or-winning film uses this lively, sometimes turbulent classroom as a microcosm to explore the simmering tensions and resentments in society as a whole. But perhaps more importantly, it celebrates the exhilarating, bracing excitement of the exchange of ideas. It manages to be both realist and optimist in approach. And it leaves you with a newfound respect for anyone who has chosen teaching as their career. Wendy Ide
The History Boys
Alan Bennett (2004)
‘Unforgettable’: Richard Griffiths (right) with Dominic Cooper and James Corden in The History Boys, 2004. Photograph: Donald Cooper/Rex/Shutterstock
Set in a northern grammar school in the 80s, Bennett’s play about a class of boys trying to get into Oxbridge was, on the face of it, an unlikely candidate for worldwide success and multiple awards. But beyond its irresistible high jinks, it asks what it is to be a good teacher. Hector (unforgettably played by Richard Griffiths) is a faulty maverick, but his ability to talk about poetry remains the play’s most disarming feature. Hector believes that what and how you read is more important than any exam. Kate Kellaway
Educating Yorkshire
Channel 4 (2008)
Not a dry eye: the inspirational Mr Burton from Educating Yorkshire. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer
There have now been five series of Channel 4’s Bafta-winning fly-on-the-blackboard observational documentary, each set in a different UK secondary school: Essex, Yorkshire, East London, Cardiff and the latest run, Educating Greater Manchester, which launched last week. 2013’s Educating Yorkshire followed the inspirational efforts of headmaster Jonny Mitchell to turn around ailing Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury. When English teacher Mr Burton helped shy pupil Musharaf overcome his acute stammer – to the extent that “Mushy” delivered a speech in the end-of-year assembly – there wasn’t a dry eye on four million sofas nationwide. Michael Hogan
The Headmaster Ritual
The Smiths (1985)
‘I’ve got this terrible cold coming on…’ Morrissey in 1985. Photograph: Sheila Rock/Rex/Shutterstock
Until the Smiths, the head boys of school-hating rock were Pink Floyd, who pilloried the worst bits of education in Another Brick In The Wall. Morrissey did not relish his time at his secondary school, St Mary’s, Stretford, and The Headmaster Ritual opens the epochal Meat Is Murder with an invective against corporal punishment and the brutalising aspects of authority. Barbarism may have begun at home, but the blows came thick and fast at school: “Sir thwacks you on the knees/Knees you in the groin/Elbow in the face/Bruises bigger than dinner plates.” Kitty Empire
Harry Potter
JK Rowling (1997-2007)
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry with Hedwig the owl. 2001. Photograph: HO/Reuters
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, home to Harry Potter and his chums Ron and Hermione, might seem like the epitome of public-school tradition – all turrets and battlements, with its system of houses, a lake and a Quidditch pitch to boot. But in many regards, it’s thoroughly progressive: co-educational, multi-faith and, if not exactly open to all – you have to demonstrate at least fledgling magic powers – then certainly not a bastion of privilege. Its anarchic strand is perhaps a clue to its name, which also appears in Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle’s Molesworth books. Alex Clark
Approaching the Elephant
(Amanda Rose Wilder, 2014)
Watch a trailer for Approaching the Elephant
“If you don’t want to do math right now, you don’t have to do math right now,” says one of the “teachers” at New Jersey’s Teddy McArdle Free School, the subject and setting of Amanda Rose Wilder’s riveting, maddening cinema verité debut. There are no rules at McArdle, and no hierarchy between students and teachers: a child’s fantasy in theory, and utter chaos in practice. This black and white documentary coolly observes bossy girls and bullying boys (none older than 10) who call “meetings”, talk like grownups and have their own self-contained ecosystem of morality. Simran Hans
My So-Called Life
Starring Claire Danes (1994-95)
Ahead of their time: Claire Danes and Jared Leto in My So-Called Life. Photograph: Allstar/Studiocanal
Cancelled way too soon after a single series, this angsty, mid-90s teen drama has since acquired cult classic status. Then aged 15, Claire Danes starred as Angela Chase, a troubled sophomore at Pittsburgh’s Liberty High School. She searched for her identity, rebelled against her parents and nursed a crush on bad boy Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto). With its grungey soundtrack and gritty storylines – taking in sex, drugs, alcoholism, abuse, homophobia and homelessness – it was ahead of its time. Now, thanks to a second life on DVD and Netflix, it’s belatedly getting its dues. MH
Future Conditional
Tamsin Oglesby (2015)
Sobering satire: Nikki Patel and Rob Brydon in Future Conditional at the Old Vic. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
An entertaining, sobering and satirical play about the divisiveness of the UK’s educational system. A bright Pakistani girl, a refugee, is its central character. It involves class discussion in the fullest sense, and its staff include a smooth Etonian educationalist, a working-class northerner and a struggling Welsh idealist. The play is squirm-makingly merciless about middle-class parents who are precious about their children’s education, but it is the makers of our warped educational policies who are placed most damningly in detention. KK
Starfish and Coffee
Prince (1987)
Vive la différence: Prince on stage, 1987. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images
His late purpleness was probably best known for his overtly sexual oeuvre, but Prince always had a blithe, sweet side, which proved a natural fit for The Muppets when he guested on the show in 1996. Forced to line up at school, Cynthia Rose is a whimsical spirit, but her odd socks and her eccentric choice of breakfast fascinate her classmates. “Starfish and coffee/Maple syrup and jam/Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine/And a side order of ham”. KE
The 400 Blows
(François Truffaut, 1959)
Watch a trailer for The 400 Blows
Almost every kid has done it – told a lie intended to divert a minor school crisis which ended up landing them in far deeper water than they would have been originally. But not every kid has told as huge and ambitious a lie as Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), the central character in Truffaut’s masterpiece about a delinquent teenager. On a whim, Antoine announces that his mother is dead, a tale which doesn’t go down well, either with the school or with his still-living and understandably furious mum. WI
The Inbetweeners
E4 (2008-10)
Meet the gang: E4 smash hits The Inbetweeners. Photograph: E4
“This isn’t Dead Poets Society and I’m not that bloke on BBC2 who keeps getting kids to sing in choirs.” So said misanthropic head of sixth form Mr Gilbert (Greg Davies) at Rudge Park Comprehensive. The potty-mouthed E4 sitcom (working title: Baggy Trousers) captured suburban high school’s heady combo of social cliquery, utter tedium and relentless piss-taking. Sex-fixated misfits Simon, Jay, Neil and Will, AKA “Briefcase Wanker”, bunked off, went on field trips, hosted French exchange students, humiliated themselves at school discos and soiled themselves during exams. What a bunch of bumders. MH
Matilda
Roald Dahl (1988)
What would Ofsted have said? Josie Griffiths in the RSC’s production of Matilda: The Musical. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
Roald Dahl knew that nothing is more entertaining than a hyperbolically ghastly teacher. And however grim your schooldays, your head teacher is unlikely to have been as terrifying a colossus as Miss Trunchbull. What would Ofsted have said about her? Dahl’s story was splendidly adapted by the RSC (the musical still runs in the West End). A despot with an unnaturally menacing bosom, “Trunch” is contrasted by Miss Honey, Matilda’s saintly rescuer, a teacher to give school a good name and – whisper it – no fun at all. KK
Half Nelson
(Ryan Fleck, 2006)
Watch a trailer for Half Nelson
This downbeat spin on the inspirational teacher genre features a young, wan Ryan Gosling (in, for my money, his best performance to date) as Dan Dunne, a lefty high school history teacher in one of Brooklyn’s tougher neighbourhoods. He’s also addicted to crack. He strikes up a friendship with African-American student Drey (a brilliant Shareeka Epps); not an unusual movie trope, but revelatory here for its innocence. Better still, the film isn’t afraid to question (or gently criticise) the power dynamic between the pair, without descending into hand-wringing. SH
Heathers
(Michael Lehmann, 1988)
Watch a trailer for Heathers
The mother of all mean girl movies, this savage black comedy peels back the polished, manicured in-crowd hierarchy of an Ohio high school and reveals a snake pit of manipulation and sadism. New girl Veronica (Winona Ryder) plays along for a while when she is admitted into the coolest, cruellest clique in school – the Heathers. But then she, and her bad-boy boyfriend JD (Christian Slater), decide to strike back – with a hangover cure made of drain cleaner. WI
Grange Hill
BBC1 (1978-2008)
Those were the days: the kids from Grange Hill. Photograph: BBC
TV freeze-frames don’t get much more evocative than that sausage-on-a-fork from the comic-style opening titles of Phil Redmond’s school soap. Set at a north London comp and airing at teatimes on BBC1, it ran for a remarkable 30 years, but its heyday was the 80s, when script editor Anthony Minghella oversaw social realist storylines like Zammo’s heroin addiction (just say no, kids). Teachers included “Bronco” Bronson, “Scruffy” McGuffey, “Bullet” Baxter and Bridget “The Midget” McCluskey. As for oddly-named cult heroes among the pupils, take your pick from Tucker, Trisha, Pogo, Stewpot, Gripper, Booga and “Row-land”. MH
Rock’N’Roll High School
The Ramones (1979)
Watch the video for Rock’N’Roll School
Yes, the Ramones were New York punks, but they were New York punks with a soft spot for the Beach Boys, who had a penchant for school songs (Be True to Your School, et al). The Ramones were more than happy to appear in a cheesy 1950s-referencing film about high school students who blow up their school, from which this song originates. While scorning history and the principal with typical surliness, the Ramones keep it light and frothy as surf (“fun, fun, oh baby”), imagining an alternative education system – a school of rock, if you will – in which “kicks” and “chicks” both figure. KE
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
What’s going on? Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in the film adaptation Never Let Me Go (2010). Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Everett/Rex Features
Hailsham, the boarding school at the heart of Ishiguro’s compelling dystopia, has all the hallmarks of an “ordinary” school: its pupils do their lessons, play sports, put on shows and form intense bonds. But little by little, its true nature – as a home for clones bred to provide organ donations – is revealed, and the “art” that the students are driven to produce takes on a darker significance. As with novels such as The Remains of the Day, centred on a grand country house, Ishiguro excels at co-opting the institutions of British life and reinventing them. AC
Napoleon Dynamite
(Jared Hess, 2004)
Watch a trailer for Napoleon Dynamite
A socially maladroit, carrot-topped teenager who lives with a grandmother who keeps llamas, Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) is an unlikely hero for a high school movie. But in Napoleon and his best friend Pedro, this quirky comedy celebrates the outcasts of the classroom habitat. The film’s central story is the timeworn device of school elections, but it’s embellished with such gleeful oddness that it almost feels fresh again. Napoleon’s climactic dance scene is a perfect moment of nerd-cool wish fulfillment. WI
The Simpsons
(1989-)
Don’t have a cow, man: Bart Simpson and Principal Skinner. Photograph: Everett/Rex/Shutterstock
“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!” Springfield Elementary plays a central part in the yellow-skinned sitcom, since both Bart and Lisa go there, albeit with contrasting fortunes. He’s the underachieving delinquent who plays elaborate pranks, gets Principal Skinner fired and is forever sentenced to write lines on the chalkboard. She’s the sax-playing spelling bee champion who’s a Mensa member aged eight and, during a teachers’ strike, suffers withdrawal symptoms from a sudden lack of praise. The school is so under-funded it’s riddled with asbestos, the corridor fire extinguishers are empty and the cafeteria serves “Malk”, a cheap substitute for milk. MH
Eton Rifles
The Jam (1979)
Watch the Jam playing Eton Rifles
In the UK, class is a theme never far away from a school song: witness John Lennon’s Working Class Hero (“They hurt you at home and they hit you at school/They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool”). Here, local boy Paul Weller took aim at Eton’s cadets, whose rivalry with comp boys was emblematic of an ossified, us-versus-them Britain: “What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?”. In 2008, David Cameron recalled he and his Eton fellows being big fans… “Which part of it didn’t he get?” fulminated Weller. KE