School set for another dose of fame

THE EDUCATING Yorkshire TV series capturing life inside a Dewsbury secondary school attracted massive audiences, plaudits and a string of awards.
Jonny MitchellJonny Mitchell
Jonny Mitchell

Now the stars from Thornhill Community Academy are set to return to the screen almost a year after the show first broadcast with a new documentary which will be shown on the evening of GCSE results day.

Channel 4 has returned to the secondary school to revisit some of the students and teachers who became household names during the original series.

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The programme will feature the school’s head teacher Jonny Mitchell and other members of the teaching team including Matthew Burton and Michael Steer and the school’s pastoral heads of year Rachel Crowther and Lynn Marsden who were all stars in the first series

It will also feature students who were some of the main characters in last year’s documentary including Musharaf Asghar whose battle to overcome a stammer to achieve exam success was the focus of the final emotional episode.

Cameras are returning to the school on GCSE results morning this Thursday and the programme will be broadcast that night. Pupils who starred in Educating Yorkshire will be among those getting their results including Bailey who rose to fame as she featured in the first advert for the original programme telling classmates that she had shaved her eyebrows off. The original series shot by Two Four was captured by more than 60 cameras set up around the school in classrooms, corridors, offices and the playground.

Eight hour long episodes captured events at the school during the Spring term last year.

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It was a follow up to the original Educating Essex programme but attracted a larger audience and a higher profile.

Since the show, some of the staff who featured have made several television appearances, most recently on the quiz show Million Pound Drop and yesterday Mr Steer and Mr Burton featured on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. During the school’s awards night last year pop star turned TV presenter Myleene Klass handed out the prizes and certificates.

It has also been reported that Musharaf is to appear on television again with his own Channel 4 series. Stammer School: Musharaf Finds His Voice will follow a group of children as they learn how to overcome their problem from other stammerers.