School, episode 6, review: Like a prequel to a mockumentary about Britain’s underachieving youth

Depressing would be too strong a word for the candid view of pupils in this series examining the British education system

(BBC/Label1/Ryan McNamara)

The final bell rang at School last night, and, just like when I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to get out. Depressing would be too strong a word for the candid view of pupils at Mangotsfield School near Bristol, but there were graphic scenes throughout – of aspirations squashed, talent wasted, life chances blighted, and professionals pushed to the limits, and beyond, by the unscaleable changes confronting them. In other words, I’m glad I never became a teacher.

There was a sequence, for example, devoted to the practical effects of the pupil premium. This is given by the state to each school every year, for students “deemed to be financially disadvantaged, regardless of their ability” – a little under £1,000 per pupil to close the gap between children from relatively well-off homes and those less fortunate.

What followed was like a prequel to a mockumentary about Britain’s underachieving youth, such as This Country or People Just Do Nothing.

John Parsons, a Design and Technology tutor, cheerfully admitted that schools generally don’t quite know how to spend the money in the best way. Next, he demonstrated his point perfectly by piling a bunch of 12-year-olds into the school minibus, and taking them into the country for some “Resilience Training Activity”. There, they met a Cotswolds sub-Bear Grylls character who let them loose in a field. “Lads,” he told them, “don’t go over the fence.” He taught them how to start a fire with twigs. Then he gave them a banana each, told them to slit it end to end, add some chocolate buttons, wrap it in tin foil and bake it.

The idea was to show the importance of “not giving up”, and they sure needed it. One kid explained how he had been thrown out of class for “crawling round on the floor” and “not doing my work”. Apart from a possible future as a Conservative backbencher, he’s not going to get very far slithering around like that. But the whole exercise, which must have taken at least a day out of their precious learning time, seemed quite a roundabout way of extolling patience.

As far as I can see, the only skills the pupils might have picked up concerned, possibly, arson. As one of Mr Parsons’s colleagues pointed out, it’s all very well this sort of thing, but it doesn’t really help them to read.

Maybe the teachers would do better to actually listen to the children whose aspirations have been crushed before they set foot in a classroom. Ja Rule, for example, was frustrated because he wasn’t learning anything “practical” but was instead wasting his time on “like Pythagoras, whatever”, and he “hates science with a passion”. No one seems to have inspired him with the idea that knowledge is fascinating in its own right; or that academic learning is like PE for the brain; or that they don’t have to do a trade, though there’s nothing wrong with doing so. Or maybe there’s no point in him trying to learn about the Bosnia-Herzegovina crisis of 1908. It wasn’t settled, either way.

Mangotsfield has some obviously dedicated teachers, but it is clear they can only do so much if home life is difficult, or the child has an ineradicable hostility to being educated. So they have to make decisions.

“I wish I could help you all but we can’t do that – we have to be selective,” one teacher admitted to the cameras, almost shamefacedly, presumably realising that the principle of spending more on brighter pupils remains anathema to most of those running state education.

Ja Rule, by the way, passed three GCSEs and got his place on a course on electrical installation. I wish him well. He won’t miss Pythagoras. Be honest, do you?

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