Educating Cardiff

[thatstoast]

Will anyone be watching? It starts on C4 at 9. I'm in South Wales, previously in Cardiff.

[Chimchar]

I loved it.

Really pleased that Leah did so well in her exams.

Mr Hennessey is funny....very easy to see through that grumpy exterior!

I work in a school too, and we also get kids out of bed in the morning. We text, phone, call on, whatever it takes really to give the kids a hand where their parents are unwilling or unable.

[titchy]

Playing I agree - whilst clearly a bright girl from a crap background does deserve a good amount of attention, I thought the staff's treatment, and TV footage, of her was extremely patronising. Why focus on something they perceive of as lacking in her, instead of her work ethic, future ambitions etc.

[noblegiraffe]

Oh, when I said bright girl from a crap background, I was talking about Leah.

[purits]

What a lovely story: the nerdy child learned social skills, the underperformer learned to apply herself. Isn't editing great?
What happened to Leah's partner in crime, they didn't mention her. I presume her outcome wasn't so rosy.

[gymboywalton]

i thought the school seemed awful-i know it was just a small snapshot but it looked like they were letting the small things slip so the big things slipped further. The uniforms! all those hoodies and coats on the corridors! Those girls standing talking to a senior member of staff drinking cans of fizzy pop!

just awful!

AND what i want to know with these programmes...they always focus on a child who is disruptive/badly behaved/truanting/low achieving and then at the end the kid has always got 10 gcses!
How???

[bruffin]

From what i can gather the film cameras go in for a couple of weeks and film everything. They then choose the "characters" and then get permission to mike them up and follow them around.

[AsTheySay]

I'm looking forward to the next episode.
I thought Mr Hennessy was fab and think it's a really good thing that they are trying to give the pupils a nudge in the right direction.
I didn't do so well in school, I wasn't disruptive but lacked in confidence in both myself and my ability. I didn't put as much effort in as I could have and wish that someone was there to give me a wake up call.
Jess was a lovely girl, very intelligent and will go on to do well. What were her plans for after year 11?
I think Leah went on to do fantastic, definitely potential there and I hope her results made her realise that.

[PlayingSolitaire]

Leah was deserving of attention and it was brilliant that she went on to get her GCSEs. However, I was speculating that it might have come at the expense of another child- one who did turn up everyday wanting to learn- because schools and teachers are stretched and don't have time for everything.

[noblegiraffe]

He is a head of house and has non-contact time specifically to deal with pupils like Leah. The ones who turn up every day wanting to learn will be helped by their class teachers.

These are kids. Real people. You form relationships with them. How do you decide who to give up on, and when? He made a big difference to Leah's life.

[PlayingSolitaire]

As I said, I am torn!

But if he didn't have to spend his time dealing with Leah, he would have that time to help others...

[noblegiraffe]

Or maybe he'd have got in later or gone home earlier. When teachers go above and beyond for a kid, it's usually at their own expense.

[BrendaandEddie]

he probably does

I am in charge of 150 kids. I probably have a regular customers list of about 10 at any one time, and a few ticking over who i Maintain less often.

[jay55]

Playing solitaire agree about Jessica, she showed good social skills with the newspaper kids. She was self aware enough to know that she didn't fit in with her peers and why.
She'll find her people later on.

[Pud2]

Those of us who work in schools know that an increasing amount of time is invested in the emotional needs of children and their mental health. Schools are faced with a range of complex needs which, more often than not, are caused by the social needs of the family, on top of EAL, SEN etc. you'll find that in most schools there are staff who are employed to deal with these needs and this will have been part of Mr Hennessy's role. He is clearly a dedicated teacher who did all he could to make sure Leah achieved her best. In an ideal world social services and mental health services would be dealing with these issues but they simply don't have the capacity. The collapse of Kids Company will further feed into this problem.

[LilacLavender]

I have watched every series of this right from the start. They have all been good, but Educating Yorkshire was MILES above the others. The staff were my favourites from any series and it was entertaining and emotional. I have watched it a couple of times again on Netflix - wish they had done another series there!!

[cardibach]

PlayingSolitaire I agree about Jessica. The Head ( who I really don't like) had her convinced she was weird, when actually she is the 'normal' one! I watched with DD and her friend who were both good, clever girls in a cool and they were really angry about the way she was treated and presented. It's nuts that a hard workin and mature young person is presented as weird and lacking in some kind of 'social skills' because she doesn't want to hang out with students who don't really want to work.

[noblegiraffe]

Why do you not like the Head? I think fair play to anyone who takes on the headship of a school with a pass rate of 13%

[cardibach]

There is that, noble! I know I wouldn't want to - but then I wouldn't want to be head anywhere...
A variety of things, I think mostly influenced by the way she spoke to Jessica. She seems to have the wrong priorities I think (gut feeling, can't really defend it). It's more a personal than a professional opinion, possibly.

[Snoozebox]

It was a bit concerning that the Head wanted Jessicca to fit in. I was an extreme Jessicca as a teenager - but I would have got nowhere by trying to fit in with the Leahs at my school. Jessicca will be fine and is clever and perceptive enough to figure it all out herself without being patronised.

[WhoTheFuckIsSimon]

Cardibach, I agree with you about your thoughts on the head. I know its hard to judge correctly in such a snapshot but I wasn't impressed by what I saw - didn't seem to command authority.

I thought Jessica was fab and agree the head shouldn't have said what she said to her. My dd is a bit like Jessica but probably not as much so. DD's teachers seem to value her being her own person. I remember her art teacher telling me once that if dd ever turned into one of those girls doing her make up and pouting at boys in class that she'd be ringing me up to ask what on earth was going on! Adults should be encouraging children to be brave enough to be themselves. Certainly in Jessica's case.

[BrendaandEddie]

You only saw what they showed you of Jessica. And I doubt the news part thing solved it. Maybe she had no friends at all

[absolutelynotfabulous]

There was an article in the Fail yesterday (I know, I know) about head Ballard. A bit....cloying, I thought.

[noblegiraffe]

Tom Bennett's blogs about these series are always worth a read:

www.tes.com/news/blog/educating-cardiff-episode-one-–-tom-bennetts-review

I love this image:
" five years before, the Willows High A*-C GCSE pass rate was 14 per cent, which is approximately what you’d get if you just pinned the papers to a wall and trained zebras to spit jam at them as they cycled past. Now it’s an impressive 50 per cent"

[cardibach]

Maybe she didn't, Brenda, which is very sad. The way to solve that is not to make her think that she is odd though. In the world outside school she really isn't.

[BrendaandEddie]

I dunno - maybe there had been issues with her nad over friendly with Staff - that was hinted at