One review on 06 May 2021

UK 2020

Running time: 63 mins

Education

Small Axe pt.5

Director : Steve McQueen 

Setting: London
Summary: A story about "Special Schools" as a tool of racial suppression


Aspect Ratio: 1.66

Colour: Colour

Sound: Mono

Camera: 16mm

Tech Notes: Camera : 16mm. Mono


Film Category

First Seen: Thu 6th May 2021
Catalogued: 8th May 2021

Synopsis

Kingsley, aged 12, loves space and rockets but is a bit lively and cheeky at his secondary school and is concealing the fact that he can't read.

Told largely from the point of view of the boy, whose parents are trapped in a system of double low paid jobs, as he struggles in the first year of secondary school. 

The headmaster calls his mother in to tell her that Kingsley is being transferred to a "Special" School in Barnet on the other side of London. It turns out this is not a school at all, it is a place to dump kids who get labelled as "Educationally Sub Normal". Teachers are largely absent and let the kids pretty much run wild.

It is only when an undercover activist posing as a psychologist enters the special school and discovers his name that things start to change.

Eventually word gets back to his mother by a woman who is starting a campaign against the dumping of black kids in these facilities and setting up a Saturday School to help them. 

Reviews

by rogerco on Thu 6th May 2021 DVD proj @ home

Ethnic Cleansing in the Education System

Summary

An education for the viewer about use of Educationally Sub Normal as a tool of ethnic cleansing in London Schools in the 1980s