Educating Essex ‘not as bad as it sounds’

It being less than four years since I left secondary education, I was very interested in watching ‘Educating Essex’— Channel 4’s documentary set in Passmores School, an ordinary secondary in Essex. I am happy to say that I was hooked as soon as I tuned in. The fly-on-the-wall nature of the programme means that you really get a feel for what the school is like. The show stays impartial at all times: you see both the good and the bad and you aren’t distracted by hasty conclusions or incessant moralising by the producers. There is a real sense that we are seeing what Passmores is really like.

Each episode focuses on only one or two groups of pupils which allows their stories to be examined in full. Difficult issues aren’t shied away from — with, amongst other problems, teenage pregnancy and bullying being explored. Even the most troublesome and disruptive pupils aren’t demonised. Care is taken to show both sides of the story and commentary from both pupils and staff shows how the current situation developed. Particularly poignant is the case of Vinnie, whose behaviour and quality of schoolwork has dramatically deteriorated since his parents separated. His heartfelt conversations with his favourite teacher, Miss Conway, were a particular highlight.

The stars of ‘Educating Essex’, however, are clearly the teachers. The programme’s masterstroke is not just restricting their screentime to interactions with pupils. You get to see banter in the school office; senior staff messing around at their regular meetings and the head teacher, Mr Goddard, jumping out from behind a door to scare his deputy, Mr Drew. You get to see that these are real people and this leads you to care for them. This is certainly helped by their clear desire to help their pupils. As Mr Goddard says, the school’s aim is that “nobody leaves without enough qualifications for the next step in their lives”. It’s clear that the staff do everything they can to achieve this and it’s uplifting to see when they succeed.

In the first episode Mr Drew tells a pupil that she “will never, ever come up against people who are as calm and patient as we are, for the rest of your life”. With all that he has to put up with, all the while remaining calm and focused on his duty of care, you can certainly believe him. This programme is the perfect antidote to all the newspaper scare stories about the collapse of the education system. If even a few schools work as hard as this for their pupils I think that we’re going to be alright. This is inspiring, well above average television. I strongly urge you all to watch the remaining episodes and catch up on what you might have missed online.