23/04/2013 - Staff to be made redundant as education body shutters after 26 years

Film Education, an organisation that provided teaching resources, teacher training and cinema based events, which support the use of film within the curriculum, will close on April 26 after 26 years in operation. All 15 full-time and part time staff will be made redundant. The closure of Film Education is as a result of the decision in November 2012 by its primary funder, Cinema First, to cease its financial support from the end of March 2013.

A major casualty of Film Education’s closure will be the cessation of the popular National Schools Film Week, a free, annual event for schools offering a wide programme of films selected in consultation with teachers. The festival enabled all schools across the UK to take children to screenings at cinemas during the school day as part of their curriculum learning. 547,699 students attended over 3,115 screenings in 530 cinemas across the UK in 2012.

The closure comes just 10 days after the British Film Institute (BFI) announced an ambitious £26 million programme titled Film Nation UK, aimed at 5-19 year olds across 26,700 schools in the UK. Film Education apparently is surplus to the BFI’s film education requirements.