At age 87, veteran British filmmaker Ken Loach says The Old Oak will be his last film and it closes the trilogy set in the north-east of England after I, Daniel Blake (Cannes Palme d’or 2016) and Sorry We Missed You (2019). It looks at the arrival of a group of Syrian refugees to be … Continue reading “Ken Loach Trying to See the Hope”
Windrush Day is coming! But what is it exactly? It has been celebrated annually in the UK since 2018. It takes place on 22 June, the date in 1948 when the arrival of a ship called the HMT Windrush heralded the beginning of a wave of immigration from British colonies,. This 75th anniversary year will … Continue reading “Windrush Day”
The 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush in the UK, and the current scandal about the treatment of the children of the Windrush Generation, give an opportunity to look at the experiences of Commonwealth immigrants to the U.K. This is a nice simple explanation of the Windrush generation from the BBC children’s … Continue reading “Teaching About Windrush”
A new BBC film tells the true story of one man’s experience of being told that after 50 years he no longer had the right to live in the UK. They are known as the Windrush Generation: people who were born in British colonies who were invited to come and help Britain rebuild after WWII. … Continue reading “The Human Face of the Windrush Scandal”
The Tate Britain exhibition on William Blake explores this talented 19th century artist whose poems and paintings are strikingly modern and pregnant with meaning. Differentiated activities from A2+ to B2 will allow you to add Blake to a sequence on the Gothic or the Romantic movements, for example Shine Bright 1ère Advanced File 1 “Freaky dreams”. … Continue reading “William Blake: Visionary”
It’s always lovely to see students’ work. Here are some collages created at the end of a sequence from Shine Bright 1e: SnapFile 10 Punk is not dead. In this sequence, in Axe 3 Art et pouvoir, students considered whether the spirit of punk can still shake society. They were asked to create and comment … Continue reading “Your Students Have Talent: Punk is not Dead”
Ken Loach is famous for his socially committed films, and his new film, Sorry We Missed You, is no exception. Loach brings the kitchen-sink drama bang up to date with this indictment of the gig economy in the UK with a family struggling to survive in the modern world of work. The gig economy, or … Continue reading “Ken Loach Takes on the Gig Economy”
There were various celebrations and exhibitions planned to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of West Indian mass immigration to the U.K., with the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in London on 22 June 1948. Instead, a scandal has grown up about the treatment of the “Windrush Generation” that led to the … Continue reading “What About Windrush?”
The highpoint of the cultural calendar in the Shetlands, Scotland, is a spectacular Viking fire festival in January: Up Helly Aa. This video and photo galleries are useful for discussing the festival. Find out more about the celebration in our article. In this video, an American man with Shetland roots describes discovering Up Helly Aa … Continue reading “Up Helly Aa Webpicks”
The Shetland Islands are the northernmost part of the U.K., and belonged to Norway until 1468. So it’s no surprise that the highpoint in the Shetland cultural calendar is a spectacular Viking fire festival in January: Up Helly Aa. On the last Tuesday of January, a thousand costumed men pull a Viking longship through Lerwick … Continue reading “Shetland Viking Fire Festival”