Review of Susan Ellsmore, Carry on, teachers! Representations of the teaching profession in screen culture, Trentham Books, Stoke on Trent, UK and Sterling, USA, 2005, ISBN 1 85856 359 3 [Book review]

Abstract

Review of Susan Ellsmore's 2005 publication, Carry On, Teachers! Representations of the Teaching Profession in Screen Culture. Stoke on trent, UK and Sterling USA: Trentham Books. (ISBN 1 85856 359 3). There is a strong and continuing tradition of cinematic representations of the work of educators, some of it memorable and inspiring. The most recent of these viewed by the reviewers was Julie Walters’ superlative performance in the television film Ahead of the Class (ITV, 2005). Walters portrayed Dame Marie Stubbs, who came out of retirement to lead St George’s Roman Catholic Secondary School in London, at whose gates a previous headteacher had been murdered and which was threatened with closure by the English Office for Standards in Education. Partly by dint of her powerful personality and partly through the enforcement of what some might see as traditional behaviour such as courtesy and punctuality, she succeeded in taking the school from having been threatened with closure to being lauded as a national example of good pedagogical practice.