Has anybody else been watching educating Yorkshire? Imo it has been a great series which I never expected. Tonights episode nearly had me crying like a wee bairn.

I’ve really enjoyed the series.

I don’t watch much telly but this has been great.

That young lad Ryan deserves a show of his own he is hilarious.

I was hoping that there would be more footage of Ryan. He needs his own show!!

Absolutely brilliant, almost makes me want to take up teaching. Almost!

I didn’t watch EY as TBH it is too close to the day job for me, but right now they are discussing education on Question Time, and specifically the non-requirement for qualified teachers in Free Schools. The point that the proponents of Free Schools totally miss is that teaching is more about soft skills than outright subject knowledge. Teacher training does not teach you the subject, it teaches you about interacting with kids to deliver a curriculum.

To be a successful teacher – and the staff on EY seem very good to me – you need to care about the kids you teach and be able to get on well with them. Without the soft skills, subject knowledge is almost irrelevant.

But let’s be honest, you also need subject knowledge. Otherwise you’re just teaching to the curriculum, and not able to expand on it.

You do, but without the ability to work WITH the kids, you’re fighting an uphill battle.

Funnily enough have 7 17 year olds here at the moment all at different schools. Coincidently, they came into the room just at the time of the QT school debate. Every one claimed that the best teachers at their respective schools had come from different career backgrounds before coming into teaching outside the normal training route.

Nothing scientific in that but I found their consensus interesting. If nothing else may point to having a broader framework for picking out the best teachers.

as a newly qualified teacher I find the fact that people are allowed to teach in a school without a professional qualification to say they have the ability to teach to a nationally recognised standard deplorable. Shame on the gov for allowing it to happen.

Educating Yorkshire is a brilliant programme and shows exactly what it is like in a comprehensive school. I just wish there were more Heads like theirs in all schools.

You can’t educate Yorkshire, it’s too far down South, 😈

I definitely didn’t cry watching it tonight. Honest.

Our wonderful government is putting everything in place with the ideologically driven dogma of the free schools experiment, so that the kind of caring, compassionate, and effective teaching demonstrated by those admirable people will be banished forever! To be replaced by something far more socially divisive and expensive. Removing democracy from the education system forever. Good education for those who’s parents can afford it, one way or another.

Who inspires the most confidence? That Yorkshire head teacher? Or that clueless ****-wit on Question Time who is alladgedly an education minister? One of Goves moronic minions. I doubted any of the Tory front bench would show their faces in Liverpool.

I dread to think, but the Tories are going to unleash the same ‘creative chaos’ that has done so admirably for the railways, energy companies etc. another privatised utopia.

Nice. If you can afford it!

I doubted any of the Tory front bench would show their faces in Liverpool.

Mind you, I doubt the MP for Liverpool Wavertree ever shows her face there either.

As an FE lecturer in another life, I’ve dealt first hand with the caliber of student our huggy-huggy million-chances, nothing’s-your-fault system is churning out and it’s not a pretty sight. All they seem to learn is a spurious knowledge of their ‘rights’ and that if you drag your heels long enough, some nice short-haired plump lady will do the lions share of all your work for you.
Actually, that’s a little unfair to some of the great young people I had a chance to work with.

I know it’s not real-time so the effects are greatly exaggerated, but I did feel sorry for the ‘average’ kids who were having their own personal right to a good education compromised by the disruption of a few bad eggs.
Although the knowledge that some people are self-absorbed a*holes is perhaps an important life skill 😉
It did remind me of my own school experience whereby a classmate received a £15 woolworths voucher for finally doing some work we’d all done weeks ago.

It did make me glad I’ve left the education system- it’s just so grey and dull and full of drudgery. For me, the golden glistening moments when you share a eureka moment with a class of engaged, interested and bubbly young people were far too few and the dull grey tedium of targets, audits and meetings far too many.

I didn’t cry either, honest….

Nor me, my left eye was just irritated and running…..

I’ve watched bits and bobs over the last few weeks, and really enjoyed it.
Turned on last night just as the lad with the stammer gave his speech. It must have been VERY dusty in our front room at home, that’s all I’m saying. To see his male pals in tears for him too – just wow.
I love the head teacher too, what a top bloke.

I certainly wasn’t welling up at the end. Nope, not me, you can’t prove nuffink….

😥

As has been mentioned above, I rarely watch much telly but I’ve seen most of this series and its been excellent. Actually has me questioning my decent career in IT and wanting to teach. Wish the staff at my school had been like that – head teacher sat behind a closed door and only ever ventured out for assembly and there was zero pushing the kids to succeed like Thornbury.

Brilliant, brilliant series.

I’ve only watched a couple of shows but very decent series. The head teacher studied at Heriot Watt university in Edinburgh, my sister studied with him. I’m not sure if they were on exactly the same course but if they were then his first qualification would have been in languages, interpretation/translation.

Have to agree with binders rant about Free Schools. They seem largely a way for people with an axe to grind to opt out of any control. And they are certainly not free they are costing mainstream schools a fortune in diverted funding.
In fact it’s a great way to get your kids away from those nasty poor people. I am sure there are some token proles but the Free school movement seems middle class driven.

Last night’s was something else, wasn’t it? We were being a bit sceptical at home, with the obvious desperation of the teacher a day before the speaking exam and the lad couldn’t get a word out – when he said “I saw this on The King’s Speech” we were proper taking the wee wee out of his obvious floundering and futile desperation, right up until five seconds later when the words started flowing out of the lad’s mouth. It did seem to suddenly get dusty at that moment.

What struck me, not just last night but throughout the series, was the dedication of the teachers featured. Obviously they only featured a small sample of the staff team and the jaded clock watchers wouldn’t have signed up to this, but for all those who trot out the comments about how easy a life teachers have, I hope they noted the amount of additional time these people were putting in, on lunchtimes and after the end of the normal day, to provide additional help to those who needed it, regardless of whether or not it was getting an appreciative response from the students concerned.

Brilliant series, watched every one and really enjoyed it. Ryan is class, needed a bit more of him, the lasses were irritating, some little doylems wanted a slap, the teachers seemed to actually GAF and the head teacher reminds me of my cousin, he’s a fat balding get too. Made me think a bit more about individuals, rather than lumping kids in as one and saying “bloody kids nowadays, they don’t know they’re born!” Watched last nights with the lad i go to the gym with, both blinking back watery eyes when Mushi was doing his thing at the end, both of us trying not to look at one another 😥 😆 . Uplifting stuff.

Yeah, illuminating and moving stuff but what’s up with the teachers’ haircuts?!?

Cheers,
Jamie

Last nights episode was brilliant. I can t believe how well Mushi did and to stand up in front of your whole year to give that speech at the end was proper brave and inspiring, what an amazing kid and set of teachers. I used to work with a guy with a stammer as bad as that and you could see it killing him inside. All that intelligence and just not being able to get it out. I really hope someone will have seen lasts nights episode and might be able to give him more help with his stammer. I also really hope Mushi hears how proud of him so many of the public are.

I also watched a bit of Educating Essex on E4 afterwards and one of the teachers made a couple of great points.
“kids nowadays just don’t seem to understand the word no”

“You will never in the rest of your life meet anyone as patient and willing to bend over backwards to help you than the teachers at this school” said to a girl who was a real trouble maker.

“People say kids are worse now than 20 or 30 years ago. Its not the kids fault as they are just a product of society. Its is use as adults that are to blame”

Also how cruel is it that someone with such a bad stammer still has to do a talking exam that is worth 20% of the marks. Could he not have a bit of dispensation. I’m dyslexic and when I did my GCSE over 20 years ago I was given extra time and the people marking the papers were made aware so I was given a bit of slack with spelling and punctuation. Without that would I have been able to go on and get a degree in economics?

Fingers crossed for him

Mind you, I doubt the MP for Liverpool Wavertree ever shows her face there either.

I can’t believe she’d even been to liverpool before she became ‘my’ local MP. Shocking, I’ll bet she still wears her parachute…

I can’t believe she’d even been to liverpool before she became ‘my’ local MP.

No, me neither; IIRC the selection process was a bit iffy too.

She’d have been my MP too if we’d not moved. I somehow doubt she’s much cop at representing her constituency.

I have to say I haven’t enjoyed it as much as Educating Essex. Essex kids have more gift of the gab and it was a more amusing show as a result.

In my experience of teaching up North and down South there is a bit more spite in the southern kids.

We had the Essex head-teacher do our INSET last year and he made a great impression. Harlow is a pretty depressing no-wheres-ville and I get the sense they deal with a lot of hard-knocks there.

Those two qoutes from … Essex from Woody74 were really bang on the money. Kids get a much worse deal nowadays – stressed-out guilty parents who try to buy them off with stuff and try to be their mate, combined with stressed-out teachers who are playing the numbers game.

British education is a meat-grinder – children go in, statistics come out, the teachers just turn the handle.

Has anyone mentioned ‘shaved eyebrows’ yet! Very good series. Educating Essex will not be the same, not going to bother watching that. Far far too down south…

really enjoyed the series, im really thinking about teaching as a profession now

First one I watched last night; the end was pretty unbelievable. It was the reaction of all the othe kids that definitely didn’t affect me.

kimbers save yourself some pain. Don’t. 😉

Harlow is a pretty depressing no-wheres-ville

Dewsbury isn’t?

Brilliant series, kids and teachers/staff. We just watched the last episode and our eyes were more than a little damp.

Brilliant series, kids and teachers/staff. We just watched the last episode and our eyes were more than a little damp.

Are you hiding behind my couch?

Inspirational stuff. I’m now considering teaching also….

Good program but was filmed in a well behaved school. Would of loved it to have been filmed in a inner city school in manchester, leeds or bradford.

Sad for the traveller kid from last week.

They didn’t tell us if he got to study history or not in the end.