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(More customer reviews)Sidney Poitier has the role of a new teacher in one of Britain's secondary schools. He is given a class of students who, with maybe one or two exceptions, have reached the end of the academic road and will be leaving school at the end of term. They have no academic future and their future outside of school is not to promising. Bike messengers and shop assistants if they're lucky is what awaits these 15 year olds. (Leaving age in the mid-60s was 15.) The kids can care less about school and are just watching the days roll down until they don't have to attend anymore.
Poitier's charecter quickly realizes that the best thing he can do is get these kids ready for the real world. He junks the syllabus and creates his own plan for these people to meet life with something like survival skills. Instead of maths, science and english, he teaches the world of cooking, politeness and proper grooming. These latter skills will help these kids far more than being able to diagram a sentence.
I first saw this film when it first came out. I think I had a better appreication of it, as an American, becuase I had jsut returned from living in the UK and attending a secondary school, which while not like North Quay, did introduce me to some of the characters portrayed. Guys I knew were facing school leaving with prospects of working as a green grocer's assistant or a boy soldier or seaman in the Forces. So on an intellectual level, I certainly understood what Poitier's character faced. These weren't juvenile delinquents but a real segment of British society that probably still exists today.
This film has just as much validity today as it did when it was first released. The cast is excellent from Poitier down to the kid with no lines but filling a desk. I found this to be a fine film at the time I first saw it and today when I saw it again after a period of several years between viewings. I recommend it to everyone who enjoys British films.
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