Education Week 1925

This unusually ambitious film for its time offers comprehensive coverage of education in Newcastle’s schools.

Made for Newcastle–on–Tyne’s Education Committee by a local photographer, Education Week records the department’s work in schools during what was one of several such national events in the 1920s.

After a glimpse of the Committee in action, we move directly to the schools, starting with assembly and the laying of flowers on a war memorial. Children marching to assembly and standing neatly for prayers demonstrate discipline. We see infants at play, older children performing in a band and classes in geography, maths, literature, woodwork for boys and needlework, cookery and childminding for girls. Various sports and impressive drilling testify to a dedication to physical fitness.

Still more striking are schools for the disabled; outings and free meals for ‘necessitous’ children; visits by police road safety officers; and language schools using gramophone equipment. Pupils are shown all the way up to university level and teacher training college.

Finally, a visit by the Prince of Wales is greeted with patriotic zeal by 9,000 children forming themselves into a Union Flag. The committee has evidently thought through every aspect of the job of educating the young and confidently demonstrates the success of its enlightened policies.

Synopsis