School Life

School Life follows a year in the lives of two inspirational teachers, John and Amanda Leyden, in their final year of teaching after 46 years at Headfort, the only primary-age boarding school in Ireland.Their Mantra is: "reading! rithmetic! rock n roll!". For John, rock music is just another subject alongside Maths, Scripture and Latin, taught in a collaborative and often hilarious fashion.For Amanda the key to connecting with children is 'the book' and she uses all means to snare young minds. Not unlike Hogwarts with its 18th Century buildings, secret doors and magical woodlands, Headfort School is also a contradiction: the epitome of stablishment, presided over by a social democrat, an ex-student of John and Amanda, who eschews class in favour of achievement. Yet Headfort maintains the links that connect its young charges to the levers of power. After 46 years teaching at Headfort, John and Amanda have shaped thousands of minds but now the unthinkable looms: what would retirement mean?