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Teachers TV

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  • Posted at 12:04pm
  • 12 November 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 2 comments

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the Teachers TV channel for blockbusting entertainment, unless you get your kicks out of listening to strategies for improving Year 4 maths results, or dry analysis of Estelle Morris's views on closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged and affluent pupils.

But even Teachers TV has to let its hair down at some point, and yesterday they showed an episode of Classmates, a fantastic Channel 4 documentary series from 2002 which reunited former pupils of a particular school, and filmed their recollections of school dinners, French vocab tests, and administering wedgies in the bogs.

This programme featured the class of 1977 at Grange Secondary, Aylesbury, a comprehensive school which sat very much in the shadow of the posher grammar school next door. It's a simple but incredibly effective set-up that drags you in right from the start. As with any school, you've got the troublemaker, the Goody Two-Shoes, the bully, the bullied, the joker – and that's just the teachers. Ho ho.

No, the teachers range from the strict disciplinarian who commands respect, to the jovial chap with a beard who doesn't immediately command respect, but gently persuades the kids that respecting him might be a cool idea. So how have they all turned out, 25 years on?

For some, there were painful recollections. A number were resentful that the 11-plus exam – which determined whether they went to the grammar school or the comprehensive – essentially decided the direction of their whole lives, while others recalled the bullying that went on, and how they eventually had to resort to therapy in order to get over it. The 11-plus isn't around any more, of course. Unfortunately, bullying very much is.

Others remembered a fantastic period of time when they were allowed to shine, they were encouraged, supported and nurtured. We love stories of inspirational teaching, of heroic figures who motivate an otherwise demoralised group of children and galvanise them into action.

Grange Secondary had Andrew, a drama teacher, who formed a drama society that won a stack of trophies, and produced from its ranks a West End director, a TV actor and a Hollywood casting director. And this is from a group of children who failed their 11-plus, who were deemed second-class citizens by the education system, but still won through.

As a feel-good bit of TV, it can't be beaten. Regardless of whether the kids in the class of 1977 were academically poor, came from a family with no money, were so timid as to blend into the background and hide, or were just a persistent irritant who delighted in undoing girls' bra straps through their coats, all of them were able to smile wistfully and wallow in nostalgia. They were able to finally put the terror of forgetting games kit or being caught running in the corridors into some kind of perspective. And the reason it makes great telly is that it's the same for all of us. I can't imagine Teachers TV has particularly high viewing figures at the weekend, but I can't have been the only one who immediately went to Friends Reunited to indulge in a bit of nostalgia of my own.

Teachers TV is on Sky channel 880 and Virgin 240.

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  • Posted on 12 November 2007
  • at 3:55pm
  • by crimea_river

I went to the posh grammar school, which is nice. The 11+ is still used in Buckinghamshire, by the way. So if you're not very bright, you still end up at the Grange :(

  • Posted on 12 November 2007
  • at 3:54pm
  • by theealex

My brother has shows about IT on Teachers TV - http://www.teachers.tv/video/158 - as you can see, I got all the hair in the family!

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