BFI Film Audience Network to host Gregory’s Girl education events

BFI Education and the Wellcome Trust are collaborating with Cinelive on What’s the Grey Matter with Gregory?, a series of one-day events building on the success of The Midwich Experiment (2014/2015).

The BFI Film Audience Network is working with Cinelive to host 10 events across England, Scotland and Wales as part of BFI’s LOVE season. These innovative events, which take inspiration from Bill Forsyth’s essential teen romance Gregory’s Girl, will bring this thrilling brand of science and arts education to more than 1,000 secondary students throughout the UK.

The Event

Abronhill High School appears to be undergoing a rather strange outbreak of ‘flirtatiousness’ that the authorities are none too pleased with! The Department for the Investigation of Amorous Disorders (D.I.A.D.) has been called in to help us understand what has befallen those students at Abronhill High. And that is where your students come in.

During the course of the day, your students (as scientists from D.I.A.D.) will step into the 1980s and the strange world of Abronhill High, meet and observe the behaviour of the flirtatious students and take part in a series of workshops delivered by our partners from universities throughout the UK. Your students will also meet and work alongside PhD scientists as they examine the influence that psychology and hormones hold over human behaviour…

• What are the key psychological factors that lead to human attraction?
• Do we have cognitive control or are we just responding to hormonal influences?
• What considerations must we make when managing our relations?
• Your students will develop the key literacy and laboratory skill of observation throughout the day as they devise and regularly revise their theories.
• They will also develop an understanding and appreciation of this classic British film.

Attendance is free for students and teachers, and schools may (on a first come first served basis) bring up to 100 students but preferably no fewer than 30. All workshops are designed by qualified teachers and will be carefully pitched at the 13-16 age range with natural differentiation using a project-based approach to learning. The project utilises current educational research that shows the power that an immersive encounter can have on learning. Teachers are more than welcome to bring a particular group of students (eg MAT, SEN, D/C borderline) but please inform the Cinelive team of this beforehand.

For information on the ‘What’s the Grey Matter with Gregory?’ programme in Scotland, England and Wales (including links to the national curriculum areas in science and PSHE that are covered as well as key contacts in each region), please see the Cinelive website.

UK Project Partners