This film is one of nine donated to the YFA made by teachers and students at Newfield School over a 20 year period from around 1956 to 1977. Newfield School is situated on the south side of Sheffield in the Heeley area near Woodseats.  It was opened in 1958 and become comprehensive in 1969. The films were made by the School Film Unit. As well as the usual film of school sports and trips out, the collection also includes some imaginative fictional films.  They reveal a thriving school, and...

This film is one of nine donated to the YFA made by teachers and students at Newfield School over a 20 year period from around 1956 to 1977. Newfield School is situated on the south side of Sheffield in the Heeley area near Woodseats.  It was opened in 1958 and become comprehensive in 1969. The films were made by the School Film Unit. As well as the usual film of school sports and trips out, the collection also includes some imaginative fictional films.  They reveal a thriving school, and those involved in making the films show filmmaking skills together with creative flair and wit. In the early part of the 1960s, the school also produced plays performed in a local theatre, and this background is reflected in the films – see also Newfield School(1969) and Launch (1970), and the Contexts for these films.

 


Fund raising has for many years been an important part of the School’s activities, usually for extra items, like a school bus, or to finance a school trip. The YFA has a substantial number of such fund-raising events on film. Perhaps the closest one to this Newfield film is Ten Years On: Myers Grove School, a film of another Sheffield School featuring the School Fair, made in 1970. On a grander scale, but closer in time, is Safe of Shore, made in 1980, featuring the fund raising fair and carnival in the Newland Estate for the Hull Sailors' Children's Society and St. Nicholas Primary School, which was part of that at the time.

 

Publicly funded schools in particular often need to raise extra money, sometimes for quite basic items. Fund raising itself has become a much more professional affair: with the need for permits, permission from parents, training, supervision, and health and safety regulations. There is often much more involved than just getting parents to make cakes. Outside professional fund raisers have become part of many schools as well as for charities and other cash strapped organisations. With so many competing for limited funds, especially in hard times, schools have to be imaginative. But schools have the advantage of having a ready-to-hand clientele and willing volunteers: parents. And school fund raising events, as with this one, are usually much more than that: an opportunity to include sports and games, for parents and teachers to mix, and for everyone to let their hair down after a hard year’s work. 

 

At the time of writing (July 2010) there has recently been a change of government, and school funding may well be significantly changed. There is also a suggestion from the new government for parent’s to be allowed to set up their own schools, with state backing. This is the free schools scheme proposed by the  Education Secretary Michael Gove.  Although appearing to be a move towards more control ‘from below’, the fear of some is that this might create a two-tier system, with the parents of the less well-off being in a disadvantaged position – as they already are with more limited flexibility. It seems we are still a long way off an equal start in life for all: money rules in education as everywhere else.

 

But schools are places packed with potential enthusiasm; which, if properly tapped, can make up at least some financial deficiencies.   And films like this one are a good way of showing off the general standard of a school, as well as providing a window onto the morale of students and teachers. Perhaps each school ought to have a film unit run by the students to film the school’s activities and work, as well as instigating more creative ventures. This would certainly provide an alternative to the rather dry reports of Ofsted.

 

References

 

School fund raising