Did anyone else have a "TV room" at school? That's what we had at primary school rather than pushing the TV on a trolley round classrooms (though they did do that occasionally). Had posters on the wall with that year's BBC and ITV Schools/4Schools schedule too.
When I've been into my old primary school more recently (as it's now my polling station!) they've walled up the old door to it, so god knows what's in there now, or even how to get into it!
When I was at infant school in 1989/1990, we had "the studio" which I remember had a few tiers of bench style seating as well as a laserdisc player and what I assume was a VHS player. There was, however, a hall type room which has a TV/VCR on wheels.
I cannot recall ever watching a live broadcast at school. Every programme was recorded. I watched programmes that weren't school programmes including clips from the Falklands War and the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
Did anyone else have a "TV room" at school? That's what we had at primary school rather than pushing the TV on a trolley round classrooms (though they did do that occasionally). Had posters on the wall with that year's BBC and ITV Schools/4Schools schedule too.
Yes - at junior school there was a TV room in an annexe which was also a youth club space. The TV was a Rediffusion style set with a rotary dial on the wall to switch between the BBC and ITV (as Rediffusion TVs of that era didn't have internal tuners - and each channel was delivered on a separate wire...)
We didn't have a VCR at junior school (nor did we have computers)
At secondary school we had a Philips NV1500 in one of the classrooms used for Art, Design and Technology and within my time at the school a number of VHS machines were purchased - which were usually installed on trolleys with a TV. However as there were a large number of mobile classrooms (used for language learning) which were a pair of classrooms with communal steps, not really conducive to a trolley and 21" CRT TV - those rooms had a dedicated TV and VHS machine. I remember the excitement when a satellite dish arrived to allow us to watch French and German TV live in the late 80s!
A friend went to a first school (reception to Y4) with around 60 to 70 kids in a cute stone building in rural Yorkshire back in the 1990s. It had a room with a leather settee and easy chairs that was used as a TV room as well as a drama room and for fun activities. The TV was a Philips with twin speakers and an LED channel indicator but it predated NICAM. The video was a front loader and had a circular camera connector on the front panel but my friend can’t remember the exact make. Next to the TV was a large cupboard filled with video tapes of schools programmes recorded over the years.
Whenever it rained the kids would spend their break time in the room watching videos of schools programmes and drinking milk out of small glass bottles. The school has sadly closed down as a result of reorganisation of schools in the area and expensive building repairs. The video tape collection was saved from the skip by a teacher when the school closed but its whereabouts are now unknown.
I seem to remember in primary school, as we had two forms in each year we would both join together once a week to watch Look and Read, or whatever. We'd sit in a room used for drama, and our video time was an hour a week. 30 minutes for the programme and the rest of the time for the teacher to get the TV working.
The videos my friend watched at break time tended to be history, geography, science, or fun stuff rather than Look and Read or maths and English. Many of which were never shown in lessons. There was a series called Stop Look Listen commonly referred to as Stop it shut up and listen.