The comeback of Channel 4’s fly-on-the-wall series is perfectly timed. It’s a moving, uplifting look at how children can shine with support. What a tonic for all the bad news stories about education in Britain
T
he trailer for the new series of Educating Yorkshire is a work of art. Shot in one take and clocking in at more than three minutes, it was written and performed by the children of Thornhill community academy in Dewsbury – in collaboration with Dougal Wilson, the director of Paddington in Peru – and takes in a school band, percussionist dinner ladies and a child seemingly being fired out of a cannon from the roof. It’s sweet and funny, but it’s pointed, too, in style and content.
This hasn’t been a great year for the public profile of British secondary schools. The national orgy of hand-wringing prompted by Netflix’s superb Adolescence has led to something approaching despair at the state of education, entrenching the perception that overstretched and under-resourced teachers act as little more than crowd control, leaving children neurotic and dysfunctional, making them sitting ducks for malignant influencers such as Andrew Tate.
This revival then, is perfectly timed. In the trailer, the one-take style showcases humour, variety and invention. The show itself suggests that while many things have changed since we last spent time at this school, in 2014, plenty more has stayed the same. Mr Burton – last seen movingly coaxing fluent speech out of a stammering pupil, Musharaf – is now Thornhill’s headteacher. Britain has had six prime ministers since 2014. Sometimes a slow but steady uphill trajectory is the most worthwhile path for a public servant to take.
