Educating Yorkshire (series 2)
| Educating Yorkshire (Educating: series 2) | |
|---|---|
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| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 10 |
| Release | |
| Original network | Channel 4 |
| Original release | 5 September 2013 – 24 August 2014 |
| Series chronology | |
Educating Yorkshire is the second series of the British documentary television programme Educating broadcast on Channel 4. The eight-episode first series was first broadcast on 5 September 2013. Its format is based on the BAFTA Award-winning 2011 series Educating Essex. It follows the everyday lives of the staff and pupils of Thornhill Community Academy, a secondary school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. A Christmas special entitled Educating Yorkshire at Christmas was aired on 19 December 2013.
An episode titled Educating Yorkshire: One Year On was broadcast on 21 August 2014. This episode concentrated on some of the key pupils that the audience met throughout the original series, showing what had been going on in their lives over the past year. The show also included previous year 10 (now year 11) pupils opening their summer 2014 GCSE results.
Educating Yorkshire was commissioned by Channel 4 after the success of Educating Essex two years previously. There was interest from about 100 schools in starring in the new series after the production team put a call out to all schools classed as "good" or "outstanding" by Ofsted. David Brindley, producer and director of the series, said "it was undoubtedly easier to find a school this time around". In January 2012, Jonny Mitchell, the headmaster of Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury accepted an offer to be a part of a new series based in his school. The school had had a bad reputation and was among the 6% of the worst performing schools in England, with a 2007 Ofsted report describing it as "below average". Mitchell became headmaster in September 2011 and in 2012 it became the most improved school in the Yorkshire area and reached the top 6% of schools nationally. That year, 63% of pupils attained five GCSEs grade A* to C, up 7% since 2011 and only one of the 2012 graduates is not in education, employment or training. This improvement was one of the reasons it was chosen for the series with Mitchell saying "I was proud of what we’d achieved and felt we had a story to tell". Mitchell also said "Dewsbury has suffered quite a lot in the last ten or 15 years with some adverse press. I thought this was an opportunity for us to show the positive side of the town as well".
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