Reflecting on pupil work by comparing their scripts with the first two minutes of the actual film.

This lesson carried on from Books and films, Finnish, lessons 4 - 6 after the pupils had done the challenge of writing a script for the first two minutes of a film of Roald Dahl's Matilda, in such a way that the characters of the parents and of Matilda became apparent.

The pupils had read their scripts aloud in the Finnish class and had reflected on them. This English lesson was at the very end of term and I had promised to show them the film of Matilda (only one or two in the class had actually seen it).

We watched the first two minutes of the film and we stopped to discuss it. The film shows Matilda's parents bringing her home from the hospital just after she's been born and very deflty lets us see their uncaring, selfish and flippant attutude to their own daughter. There is no description like this in the book.

We thought about the ENV the pupils had made and they admitted that it hadn't occurred to them to actually change anything - like going back in time. Many of them had imaged the future, but not the past. We had an interesting conversation, but I felt I wasn't able to guide it in the most constructive manner, and the pupils were desperate to see what was going to happen next (as I would have been!), so we watched the rest of the film.

My general reflections: I enjoyed this topic, and the pupils seemed to too, but maybe I should have had quite different tasks related to Matilda to do in the English class, or I could have taken part in the Finnish class also, but this would have been difficult, timetable-wise. We would of course have needed more time, but we also need to think through the purpose of what we were doing more carefully, to think more about the thinking outcomes and to take the time limit into account better.