Andy Wallis - English / Media Studies Teacher - Islay High School
Background
For the past 18 months I have been involved in running a filmmaking group at Islay High School where I teach English and Media Studies. This has been part of the ‘informal’ curriculum at the school, which takes place for three periods a week. It is a small group of 10 pupils and one of our main focuses is making short films through the medium of Gaelic (although we do also make films in English).
The filmmaking group has grown from working with small video cameras to managing to obtain funding for semi-professional cameras and a high-end video editing workstation. We have recently been successful with winning two awards at this year’s FilmG awards for the film An Tur - the category of Best Production and also the People’s Choice Award.
Since setting up the filmmaking group I have learnt to find the balance from being too involved to being “hands-off”, how to get everyone involved without some getting bored whilst filming and editing, how to obtain and use available equipment, and about getting pupils to think critically about film.
This is an ongoing story and is one that I will be sharing as part of the Teacher’s Stories. I hope that it will encourage others to develop similar activities and will also inform about the trials and tribulations of running such a group in a school.
I have learnt to find the balance from being too involved to being “hands-off”
Embedding MIE throughout the Curriculum
Another aspect that I will be documenting will be how (since becoming a Lead Practitioner in MIE for Scottish Screen) I have made efforts to encourage the use of moving image in a critical manner throughout the curriculum. This has been delivered through presentations at In-service Days at the school and from speaking at Local Authority meetings. Many teachers are now embracing it and using it on a daily basis. At Islay High School every pupil has an Ultra Mobile PC which includes video editing software, ClickView, webcams, stop animation software, image manipulation software, and web design software. This has allowed every pupil and teacher to have easy access to the Moving Image. In order to increase a critical awareness and appreciation of the form, education in this area has been paramount. It is hoped, by discussing how MIE is being used across the curriculum, these documents will inform teachers across disciplines how Moving Image could be tackled in their classrooms.