This proposal is for a workshop to consider the analytical approaches that historians of education should adopt, adapt or develop in order to use documentary film as visul data. The original film will be shown - 35mins - and participants will be invited to suggest avenues of enquiry and analysis that emerge. The questions that will focus our discussions will be: what are the methodological challenges for historians of education in using documentary film about schools and what are the potentials? In what ways can prosopography - collective biography - assist us in exploring the place of the documentary film maker in popularising ideas about designing education for the younger child in the mid 20th century?

Children at School, a documentary film by John Grierson will be used. A discussant /s will be invited to respond but the emphasis of the workshop will be on generating research related responses from participants.

Outcomes from the event could be (a) a publication which uses the film as a starting point and presents a range of responses to the film, from film historians and educational historians and / or (b) a further development of knowledge about and mapping of the networks of artisits, designers, educators and architects who were associated in creative realtionships in the post WWII period in Europe and who embraced the opportunity of documentary film both in the context of cinema and TV in taking forward a particular 'vision' of the school for the younger child.