Film ReviewsSchool Life: A campus tour
Oct 13, 2017 Anchorage Press
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Headfort School in Ireland was founded almost 70 years ago. The schools is just an hour’s drive from of Dublin, its 200-year-old structure was built for the Earl of Bective, it was designed by the renowned Irish architect George Semple, and with interior design by the influential Scottish architect Robert Adam. With its tall ceilings, halls, and expansive grounds, Headfort seems like a modern day Hogwarts, serving as home for students who are guided by committed teachers whose life is also tethered to the institution. Director Neasa Ní Chianáin, Dacid Rane (co-director), and the small crew followed life at Headfort over the course of year, thus capturing part of its reality and significance in the documentary, School Life.
Ní Chianáin’s interest in the school was in part fueled by Headfort’s position as the last remaining primary boarding school in Ireland. As the director developed the documentary, it became apparent that two teachers with over 40 years of history with the school were key to the school’s pedagogic heart. The documentary opens with a casual shot of John and Amanda Leyden as they prepare to go in for the first day of school. Once there, viewers get a sense of the dynamic of separation anxiety as parents drop off their kids. School Life provides a rare glimpse of a system of teaching and nurturing that seems to be a rarity this year, one in which an institution fulfills the multiple roles of a surrogate family. The sense of family and way in which the school appears to care for the children and their special needs would not be possible if it weren’t for teachers like the Leydens and the multi-generational attendance and involvement; even the headmaster was once a student there.
School Life depicts an environment in which there is a real relationship with the active act of learning. The Leydens and their peers form relationships with the kids through academics to shape their minds and instill ideas, and more importantly, foster the act of questioning that leads to critical thinking skills. The kids seem very comfortable with the camera crew lingering about during school hours and in their dorms. As expected, there are all kinds of kids, from different places, with different challenges, and personalities. They are funny and awkward, they stress and get homesick, they make friends, and sneak in books that are outside the curriculum, in short, kids will be kids. What is nice about the documentary is that it fills viewers with a sense of optimism because one assumes or gets the sense that most, if not all of these kids, will be relatively healthy adults someday. There is not a single ounce of cynicism in School Life – not even from the teachers as they evaluate the performance and progress of the kids in their own time and space.
The documentary is nicely paced and entertaining enough, viewers will definitely come to care for the teachers and the kids. There is a solemn sense one gets from the juxtaposition of the life of the kids as they are entering the school and the conversations between the Leydens as they prepare to transition to the end of their careers. While the directors do a great job at honing in on particular events and school projects, the fast paced editing, wide shots, and lack of deep discussions or insights into the kids themselves makes School Life a very cursory tour of Headfort, the kind one gets when touring before applying for admission.
Bear Tooth
PG-13 for brief strong language, and smoking.
Runtime: 1:39
Monday 10/16 at 5:30 p.m.
Ní Chianáin’s interest in the school was in part fueled by Headfort’s position as the last remaining primary boarding school in Ireland. As the director developed the documentary, it became apparent that two teachers with over 40 years of history with the school were key to the school’s pedagogic heart. The documentary opens with a casual shot of John and Amanda Leyden as they prepare to go in for the first day of school. Once there, viewers get a sense of the dynamic of separation anxiety as parents drop off their kids. School Life provides a rare glimpse of a system of teaching and nurturing that seems to be a rarity this year, one in which an institution fulfills the multiple roles of a surrogate family. The sense of family and way in which the school appears to care for the children and their special needs would not be possible if it weren’t for teachers like the Leydens and the multi-generational attendance and involvement; even the headmaster was once a student there.
School Life depicts an environment in which there is a real relationship with the active act of learning. The Leydens and their peers form relationships with the kids through academics to shape their minds and instill ideas, and more importantly, foster the act of questioning that leads to critical thinking skills. The kids seem very comfortable with the camera crew lingering about during school hours and in their dorms. As expected, there are all kinds of kids, from different places, with different challenges, and personalities. They are funny and awkward, they stress and get homesick, they make friends, and sneak in books that are outside the curriculum, in short, kids will be kids. What is nice about the documentary is that it fills viewers with a sense of optimism because one assumes or gets the sense that most, if not all of these kids, will be relatively healthy adults someday. There is not a single ounce of cynicism in School Life – not even from the teachers as they evaluate the performance and progress of the kids in their own time and space.
The documentary is nicely paced and entertaining enough, viewers will definitely come to care for the teachers and the kids. There is a solemn sense one gets from the juxtaposition of the life of the kids as they are entering the school and the conversations between the Leydens as they prepare to transition to the end of their careers. While the directors do a great job at honing in on particular events and school projects, the fast paced editing, wide shots, and lack of deep discussions or insights into the kids themselves makes School Life a very cursory tour of Headfort, the kind one gets when touring before applying for admission.
Bear Tooth
PG-13 for brief strong language, and smoking.
Runtime: 1:39
Monday 10/16 at 5:30 p.m.