Rural Studies in a Primary School

An endearing 1960s teacher training film promotes the educational value of gardening and animal husbandry in County Durham.

The village children at Tanfield Lea County School are encouraged to think like a farmer, a mathematician, a poet, artist, carpenter or scientist through hands-on experience of caring for plants and animals. Pigeon fancying and whippet racing, once popular north east pastimes, are used as creative teaching aids in this charming vision of rural studies education in County Durham.

This film (sadly missing a sound track) was commissioned by Durham County Education Department, the production assisted by David Williams, senior lecturer in film and television at Bede College, Durham University. Williams instigated the first Young People’s Video Festival and chaired its operation for 20 years, was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society in 2000 and awarded an MBE for services to media studies in the North East in the 2011 New Year’s Honours. Tanfield Lea Community Primary School, as it is now known, is still going strong.