H is for Harry

A good documentary should dig deep into a topic of interest or concern and judged against this the film 'H is for Harry' is good. Good if the topic of concern is the way in which our school system fails to meet some students' needs, but not so good if the interest is in unscrambling white working class underachievement as it repeatedly claims to do in its titles and voice-over commentary. At just under 90 minutes the film offers a sensitively drawn portrait of Harry's struggles at a sparkling new Academy in London staffed by enthusiastic and well-meaning teachers. Although there is plenty of close-up footage of Harry's intense interaction with teachers, and illuminating reflections from Harry - apparently on his way home from school, I found I wanted more detail. There is nothing about Harry's anger issues, although they are referred to a lot, and despite the fact that Harry's dad is on camera at regular intervals we don't learn very much about Harry's life at home or during his turbulent past. Of course there's only so much you can do in 90 minutes, but there's something deceptive about using Harry as a proxy for the diverse, amorphous and generally problematic social group that we refer to as the white working class. Of course, educators will draw different things from the film and that's inevitable. This one was impressed by the drive and commitment of the young teachers, but their dogged adherence to a regime of motivational slogans and exercises had a Brave New World feel to it. In a classic act of responsibilisation the achievement gap is presented as a tough challenge that individual students have to take on, whilst their unruly energies are pacified by a teacher who plays guided meditation to them on her laptop. But more worrying was the curriculum that played in the background like an old 78 - skill-and-drill phonics, grammar and Shakespeare. It was heart-breaking to watch the the teachers trying so hard to breathe life into something that was so clearly moribund. So what you might call the experience gap loomed large when you saw the world through the students' eyes - friends moving away, holidays that included a visit to a drug shop in Holland, a new swimming pool that magically appeared in Harry's back garden, a school exclusion for a stabbing (or was it an overdose?). Harry's thoughts about his future life? Staying alive. Unfortunately that seems about right. In the end 'H is for Harry' is a sad and moving film. It's very well crafted, but I'm not sure I'm any the wiser about the so-called white working class - or, for that matter, the crucially important 'others' who had walk-on parts at the Academy, but I applaud the film's sincere attempt to address the complex and important issue of the sate of education in state education. Let's have more!