Educating Essex

I was educated in Essex myself, so had a particular interest in seeing this programme, although I have to say I imagine things are much the same all over the country. Did anyone else watch? If you didn't, then in a sentence: outstanding-rated Passmores school in Harlow let the cameras in to follow the teachers and pupils, from the same team that brought us One Born Every Minute.

I have no idea how the production company managed to persuade the school to let the cameras in; the pupils' permission slips alone must have been a nightmare. I imagine the school felt that the programme would show viewers the tough job facing teachers and the heroic work they put in at the chalkface, giving them an insight into the day to day reality of school life.

Did it do that for you? The programme was certainly entertaining. The majority of the comments on Twitter during the show were favourable (I can't vouch for what they may be like today), and viewers seemed to react positively to the teachers, particularly the deputy head teacher Mr Drew, and their methods. Teachers on the show made some very positive and thoughtful comments, for example about exclusion (a school that excludes is failing pupils) and the difficulties children face in a society that forces or expects them to grow up too quickly. The Daily Mail, unsurprisingly, got completely the wrong end of the stick, seeing, or affecting to see, a shocking lack of discipline and childishness from teachers where most of us saw genuine attempts to balance discipline with engaging teaching.

But but but. However good the school may be (and I don't really think we saw enough to judge) I do have a big problem with the series. In today's multimedia world, putting young people on television is like throwing them to the wolves. We saw two young women misbehaving, one of whom accused a teacher of assault. I would say the programme itself did show some positive sides to these young women as well, we heard of their intelligence, their kindliness. But instantly on Twitter people were criticising the girls in no uncertain terms. Next week's show focuses on cyber bullying - but hasn't the programme opened up the young people it portrays to cyber bullying of the worst kind, with the whole nation picking apart their background, their clothes, their behaviour, even their names?

My other issue is that so far we have seen only misbehaving young people. Next week, it looks like we will be seeing more misbehaviour plus some victims. I know this is better telly but it would be good to see some of the positive things young people are doing in that school. There must be some, surely?