ON THIS PAGE
1. The Man in the Middle

2. In Production

3. God Exists - Now it's Official!
An eminent atheist recants.

4. Suddenly.....Nothing Happened!
Some thoughts on using a video in class.

5. Howlers.

1. TONY TEW: THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE
Tony Tew trained with BBC tv before becoming an independent producer and director with Grenville Film Productions Ltd making programmes for Channel Four and other tv broadcasters and corporate bodies. Winning many international awards, his productions ranged from period drama to music and from documentaries to educational programmes.

His many screen credits include:

GOD'S OUTLAW
Pruducer/Director
A 90-minute 16th century period drama starring Roger Rees, Keith Baron and Oona Kirsch on the life of William Tyndale, the English Reformer and Bible translator. (Channel Four)

NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Director
Drama/Documentary on the history of the Earls of Pembroke and their magnificent Palladian style palace at Wilton near Salisbury. Starring Anna Massey.

JOHN WYCLIFFE - The Morning Star
Co-Producer/Director
75-minute 15th century period drama starring Peter Howells on the life of this medieval scholar and Bible translator. (Channel Four)

A CANDLE IN THE DARK
Writer/Director
90-minute 18th century period drama on the life and work of William Carey, pioneer missionary. A stunning drama filmed on location in India and starring Richard Atlee, Lynette Edwards and Julie-Kate Olivier.

RIDING LIGHTS
Producer
A series of comedy sketches on Biblical themes with the Riding Lights Theatre Group.

JESUS THEN & NOW
Producer
12 x 30 minute educational programmes on the life and teachings of Jesus and his relevance today. An innovative blend of drama, documentary, dance, humour and interviews with David Watson and Tina Heath. (S4C Wales)

NIKOLAI
Producer/Director
30-minute drama about a Russian teenager who has to choose between his faith and his future career. (EO Television, Holland)

GREENBELT LIVE!
Producer/Director
A 50-minute musical documentary on the Greenbelt Festival starring Cliff Richard, Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, After the Fire, Bryn Haworth (et al) and with a hilarious cabaret act from Roy Castle. (BBC1 peak viewing)

CATCH THE VISION
Director
Television magazine programme featuring Sally Ann Howes.

CAUGHT IN TIME and ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Producer/Director.
Two documentaries on the fight against leprosy filmed in the stunning mountain kingdom of Nepal.

In a dramatic career change, he became a School Chaplain in 1993 - also teaching Religious Studies, Film Studies and English - and became an RS examiner for one of the GCSE boards. During this time, he also studied for a Masters degree in Religious Education.

Since 2004 he has combined his production and teaching skills in a unique way as Director of Grenville Educational Media Ltd.

Email : tony@grenville-media.com

2. IN PRODUCTION
Currently in preparation is a new series for Primary school children. Under the working title ‘Storybook’, it is a series of 10-minute stories for RE and PSHE.

We discover our presenter in a location which is relevant to a story they are about to tell. After briefly introducing the location and telling the children that it reminds her of a story they might like to hear, she takes the storybook and reads from it. As she does so we see an attractive series of specially commissioned illustrations. At the end, speaking to camera, she draws together the main teaching points.

The topics will be relevant to RE and PSHE and will include bullying, self-worth, caring for others and the need for rules - among many others.

Though each episode will link its teaching to a relevant verse or incident from Scripture, this is far from hard sell religious instruction and will touch on social, moral and ethical issues which are shared across all of the major religions.

Several different Storytellers will present stories which are appropriate to them. 'Storybook' will be full of charm, responsible teaching and interest for our young audience and we hope to have the first selection of stories available by the end of this year (2008). For more information please contact tony@grenville-media.com

3. GOD EXISTS - NOW IT'S OFFICIAL!
My eye was caught by an article in the Sunday Times (12 December) and in several national daily newspapers. Anthony Flew, emeritus professor of philosophy at Reading University and a renowned atheist, is now convinced that the universe was created by 'some sort of deity'.

The son of a Methodist minister, and an academic whose atheistic views have influenced scholars around the world, Flew now believes that recent scientific discoveries have proved the influence of a 'guiding intelligence' and is wanting to repent of his former views. "As people have certainly been influenced by me, I want to try and correct the enormous damage I may have done" he is reported as saying in the Sunday Times.

Flew still dismisses conventional religion and the concept of an afterlife. Instead, he believes that new scientific discoveries have revealed the existence of an organising intelligence. Investigation of DNA, he said, "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved". He added "I have been persuaded that it is simply out of the question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter and then developed into an extraordinarily complicated creature."

'Flew finds the conventional explanation that life arose out of a complex chemical brew or primordial soup "improbable". So he is emulating Socrates and "following the argument wherever it leads. The conclusion is - there must have been some intelligence".'

Flew (81) has been an atheist for over 65 years and during that time has proclaimed his view while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele and Reading universities. Peter Atkins, an atheist professor of chemistry at Oxford takes an opposite view however. "It's absurd", he says, "to think that because something is improbable it's impossible." Suggesting that nature has many design faults he claimed that "If I were God I would expect the current design to be sent back to me for improvement."

Which suggests to me that the above might offer a useful peg on which to hang a topic or debate on the existence of God, his involvement in creation and an alternative view to that of Charles Darwin.

We offer an interesting selection of videos and DVDs on creation and evolution - any of which offer good opportunities to lead into - or develop - such a topic. For your convenience, I offer the following as suggestions:
* Unlocking the Mystery of Life
* Creation or Evolution?
* Life's Story
* The Privileged Planet
* The Wonder of God's Creation

They may all be found (and described) in the Creation & Evolution section of the Video catalogue.

I hope you find them useful.

Tony Tew
Director
Grenville Educational Media Ltd

4. SUDDENLY ..... NOTHING HAPPENED!
Spike Milligan once described a tense wartime experience. During a dark and sinister night, with the possibility of an imminent enemy raid, his patrol nervously scanned the headland to which they had been assigned. With tension thick in the air, they edged forward. ‘Suddenly’, he wrote, ‘nothing happened!’

I sometimes wonder whether ‘suddenly nothing happened’ might describe an occasion when we have shown a video which we had confidently expected to have a dramatic impact on an RE class.

In the far-off days before Powerpoint – or even video! – when the latest wizardry might have been a slide show, I would sometimes start my presentation with a picture that was deliberately upside down. This was on the basis that since most slide talks I had ever attended had featured the embarrassment of a key slide seeming to have come from Australia, it was best to get it out of the way now! Somehow, the odd 14-year old offering to stand on his head to interpret the picture for the rest of the class wouldn’t have helped! For any presentation to gain maximum impact it must be meticulously prepared.

Perhaps we are too willing to embrace the benefits of modern technology without accepting its demands. In my experience, although we should always allow for the unexpected, the best responses from showing a video are usually predictable. They rely on the teacher’s skill in presentation as well as the programme on the screen.

If we plan to show a video, in the hope of something actually happening to the knowledge or understanding within a key theme, we need to do as much – if not more – advance preparation than for any other lesson. There’s really no quick fix! The videos you might have in your RE cupboard may be real gems, but they certainly weren’t made with class 10R in mind. And its producer may seem blissfully unaware that what they really wanted was for the lesson to end so that they could go out and kick a ball around.

Even modest videos are expensive to make. With squeezed educational budgets – and with RE often being the Cinderella department when it comes to budget allocation - HODs are very limited in terms of what can be bought. Consequently, producers are unlikely to get sufficient returns to justify dedicated quality productions honed to SACRE guidelines or the Specifications of your chosen examinations board. Their videos may therefore be produced with more than one audience in mind. Thankfully, there are exceptions but you know your class far better than any producer so you must select, present and interpret what you show in the way that best fits in with your own needs.

But we all have our own style, our own ‘take’ on the way to present a topic, our own agenda of what to include and what to omit – regardless of the specifics of the syllabus we follow. All the more reason not to hand precious class time to a video producer who doesn’t know the class, probably has no idea of the syllabus being taught and will have made his video for purposes other than helping out with your RE curriculum.

So, where does this lead us? There are some very obvious golden rules – so obvious, that I hesitate to list them. However, here goes:

Always, always preview the tape in advance. Don’t just accept the descriptive blurb on the cover. Don’t even accept uncritically recommendations from colleagues. Neither their style, their approach nor their individual agenda will be identical to yours. Nor will they know your class as well as you do.

Recognise that the video was made for an audience other than your own class 10R. I like the story of a traveller who asked the way to the nearest pub only to be told "Well, if I were going there I wouldn’t be starting from here". Every video starts from a given point, an assumption of the level of knowledge, understanding and ability of its audience. Your class might be somewhere else, or you might want them to arrive somewhere different. The most effective use of video will rely on your own introduction and what you say immediately after switching it off. And don’t be afraid to stop the video in the middle to add your own specific teaching point or to explain something that your pupils might need reinforcing.

Encourage pupils to take notes, perhaps for a discussion afterwards. Key, subject-specific words can be written on the board as the video plays – or given out on a follow-up sheet.

Don’t necessarily show the whole video. Some sequences might not be ideal for your class. Skip them, come into the video late or leave it early. DVDs with ‘chapter headings’ are specially useful for this. Some of our own videos are also available in shorter versions to facilitate class use.

Always plan time to allow your class to ask questions, discuss or debate after the screening.

Try wherever possible to set them an assignment, either in class or for homework, based specifically on what they have learnt from the video.

Remember, kids aren’t stupid! If you’re using the video as a babysitter or to save you the bother of planning anything else, they will see through this. Their perception of you - and what you are teaching - will suffer as a consequence. Make the viewing a carefully integrated part of your teaching on that topic, prepare thoroughly and follow up carefully, alert to where the video may have led them.

Obvious points, I know, but follow them and the cost of your videos will be repaid many times over. If you would like specific advice on individual programmes or their use, do contact me ( tony@grenville-media.com ) Above all, be confident. Use video as a creative tool and not your master.

Tony Tew


(Tony Tew’s first career was in television - largely with the BBC. He then formed Grenville Film Productions, producing period drama, musical programmes and educational documentaries. Later, he became School Chaplain and Head of RE at three senior schools before setting up Grenville Educational Media.)

5. HOWLERS
Some comments I came across in RE essays:

‘When two people marry, they make vowels to each other to stray together for life.’

‘Whereas euthanasia happens at the end of a person’s life, suicide can happen at any time.’

‘In order to avoid the lady getting pregnant, the couple need to use consentraption.’

But I’m sure you have better ones!