The more I think about it, the more I think I’m not normal. Last day of term, what would a normal teacher do? Put on a DVD and enjoy it. How much thought goes into the choice of film? Probably very little, maybe a vote from the kids and you’re done. Me? Oh no, that would be too easy.

As PPA cover I offered to look after/babysit/supervise Year 5-6 while they watched their end of term video. I would sit there with a netbook, do my work, they’d enjoy themselves and everyone’s happy, but I did say I wanted a decent film rather than some of the potentially awful kids films out there. So we began to look through the possibilities and people said, it must be a U film. But why?

I asked on Twitter to see if anyone knew why we were not allowed to show PG films. After all, the BBFC say this of PG films:

Unaccompanied children of any age may watch. A ‘PG’ film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.

So they can watch unaccompanied in a cinema or hire it from Blockbuster (do people still do that?) but it seems not with me in the room unless I ask parents first?

People’s responses on Twitter were varied and included:

• We send a letter out to ask for parents permission before showing a PG
• You’re in Loco Parentis, so you can make the decision
• No, it must be a U film – parents aren’t there

Is it written down anywhere that we can/can’t show a PG? Surely with teacher’s professional judgement we can do this without writing to parents first? Is it one of those things like ‘no competitive sports’ and ‘banning video cameras at the nativity’ that everyone takes as gospel but isn’t actuallya rule anywhere at all? Some people had very firm views but noone could back it up with proper guidance. It’s just the way it is. @kvnmcl found this that helps a bit.

After discussing it with the head, we decided we could watch a PG so I set about using the excellent parent guides on IMDB and found Home Alone and Elf were out due to language.

In the end we went for a U film, Spy Kids 2, and had audible shock from the children when the main spy girl, Carmen,  said ‘sh*t’ half-way through!!! You can’t bloody win can you?

On another note, one very interesting point that was raised by @dgilmour was whether we were allowed to show any film for entertainment rather than education. He pointed me to this website, that says we probably wouldn’t be covered legally to show a film to amuse the children. Here in Hampshire schools have an ERA license which is paid for by county. I was told, but never checked, that this covers us for showing films in school. This site says a PVS license is needed and it appears for our size school that it’s about £150 a year.

So, does your school have a license? Does the school deal with it or is it done through the LA? Is it something that only management need to worry about? Am I weird for even thinking about all this stuff? Surely I should just chuck any DVD on and be happy with it?

I think next year we’ll just let them bring games in (not electronic of course, there are rules)

Copyright. It’s important isn’t it? How many of you understand it? How many ‘normal’ teachers understand it? How many children have a clue? I could share my ideas on copyright, but I wouldn’t want to get on a stage and do it. I might be wrong, it’s all a bit of a mine-field anyways isn’t it?

In my new ICT curriculum, what do I say to the children about copyright? I know they can copy-and-paste stuff from the internet, but do they know it’s wrong? Is it wrong? Do they care?

Well, this week I have taught three classes of Year 3-4 and we are looking at presentations, not PowerPoint, just presentations. Most children have decided PowerPoint is their weapon of choice, mainly because it’s familiar, but a bit different due to being 2010. Some children have chosen Activ Inspire. (Does anyone else know of a school where children can use Inspire/whiteboard software?? I digress).

As part of their presentations, we decided we wanted to include pictures. We discussed how to copy them and use them in our work and that was fine. But then I asked if the children thought we were allowed to just take it. Answers ranged from:

• It’s on the internet, so we must be able to use it
• It’s on the internet, so someone else made it and we can’t take their work
• I don’t know
• Maybe we should ask them before using their stuff

Great range of answers and I was very happy. Through questioning we got to the agreement that if we said where the picture was from, that should be OK. Now out of 90 children across the year group, I’d say 10 have written the website it came from, some had written just Google, but who cares? It’s a start. About 10-15 have put either a link underneath (e.g. wikipedia) or have linked the picture to the website it came from.

I had planned to mention it to the children but I am very happy with the number who took onboard the point about borrowing/stealing/magpieing from other people and included this sort of reference in their work.

Do you mention copyright in your school? How do you teach it? I am sure I could have ‘stole’ some of the children’s work and made it a more creative lesson, but it worked, so that’ll do.