SCHOOLS in and around Tavistock and Okehampton are being encouraged to take part in National Schools' Film Week by exploring the educational benefits of a trip to the cinema.

The Wharf in Tavistock and the New Carlton Cinema in Okehampton are both offering free screenings of popular films during October.

Young people will be able to watch Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang on October 19 or The Fantastic Mr Fox on October 20 in Tavistock and Toy Story 3 on October 18, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on October 19 or Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang on October 20 in Okehampton.

The festival's goal is to support classroom teaching by providing schools with a powerful experience for their students that links directly to elements of the curriculum.

There will be an online library of resources related to individual films and more generic topics — essentially an extension of the classroom.

More than 400,000 students and their teachers attended the festival in 2009 and this year it celebrates its 15th birthday, with 2,800 screenings at 570 cinemas across the UK.

Director of National Schools' Film Week Nick Walker said: 'We hope that teachers and students feel engaged in the festival and realise that attending a NSFW screening is far more than a nice trip to the cinema.

'We do this by giving schools added talks and on-line resources to contextualise the film; to empower teachers by giving them the opportunity to programme which films they feel tie in with school topics at their local cinema and finally to encourage students to explore new worlds by seeing films they would not ordinarily choose.'

Teachers can book their free tickets online at: http://www.nsfw.org">www.nsfw.org