Head to head with an unlikely TV star

I am in the office of Mr Mitchell and, let’s get this out of the way right now, I know that some might envy my present location.

For this is THE Mr Mitchell, the headmaster at the heart of Thornhill Academy in Yorkshire which was featured on Channel 4 for the last time last night.

While he is distracted having his photograph taken, I am in a position to see not only his spare shirt hanging in the corner but also his choice of aftershave, though Mr Mitchell is actually known for his unshaven good looks. I could reveal the brand, but there might be gifts.

Once, none of this would have been interesting. Mr Mitchell was just a relatively inexperienced headteacher two years into his first job as the man in charge, but not now. The documentary series Educating Yorkshire has changed all that. It has been an astounding, rip-roaring success.

Eight episodes have consistently pulled in an audience of more than three million each and Mr Mitchell has been discovered as a heart-throb, receiving many and varied proposals – some of which have included marriage – and the offer to pose as a magazine pin-up.

We viewers have been riveted as the sheer daftness, irritation and poignancy of a school day has been laid before us.

Who didn’t warm to Mr Moses and his search for a girlfriend; who didn’t feel sorry for Mr Steer dragging himself round school with the flesh practically hanging off him as stress and allergies sent his body haywire; who didn’t love Mrs Marsden as she hugged pupils or told them to “stop being a maungy bugger”?

And that was just the teachers. The children were even better. We cooed over latte-drinking Ryan, the boy wise beyond his years; laughed at Bailey’s eyebrow-shaving phase; giggled along with the daft chorus of 13-year-olds with their Barbie hair and down-to-earth voices, and worried about Jac-Henry.

And at the centre of it all has been the charismatic Mr Mitchell, now the recipient of many a social media comment from female viewers, not all of whom want to mother him.

In person, I can report, he seems younger, funnier and has a capacity for pithy language that his pupils might find impressive. In the weeks the series has been showing, he and his key staff have gained celebrity status, mobbed for photographs at a visit to the races, and just about everywhere else they go.

The sex symbol tag is a big surprise, he says. “It’s bonkers and I have certainly never been considered one before. I don’t have a six pack, it’s more of a barrel. I saw comments about me on Twitter the other day and I wanted to say, ‘This is Mr Mitchell here. Stop it!’ Everyone likes nice things to be said about them so I would be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered in a way, but it’s silly.”

So is he glad the school took part in the show? You bet, though he is at pains to point out that the decision was a joint one between many people, and not his alone. They did it in the hope of showing that Dewsbury was not a bad place, and to try to raise school numbers.

As for the impact on the school and everyone in it, the 41-year-old thinks it has been overwhelmingly positive. His only doubt is about the episode when Jac-Henry was punished for hitting Georgia.

“It was right for him to be punished but with hindsight there should have been more consequences for Georgia too. But the programme has been a huge boost for us, there is such an air of positivity in the school this term.”

He has been criticised for spending too much time with disruptive pupils, lavishing too much care and attention on them. “Guilty as charged” is his response. Indeed, he is on record as saying he would spend more time and money on pastoral care if he could.

At the start of it all, he wrote to staff and parents to tell them the school was thinking of taking part in the programme and asked any who did not want to be on camera to say so. Out of 700 pupils, fewer than 30 wanted to be blurred out and, out of 105 staff, only four wanted to stay off camera.

Then 64 fixed cameras were set up to take more than 2,000 hours of film. Before each episode was screened, it was seen by Mr Mitchell, two of the governors and the family of the children.

“We never changed a storyline. On a couple of occasions I asked if some of the bad language could be taken out, but that was the extent of it.”

But seeing themselves on television was a traumatic experience for staff and pupils at first. “We just forgot about the cameras – I think that’s pretty obvious from what you see, but I couldn’t get over how horrible I sounded, how terrible my teeth looked, how scruffy I looked. Some of the kids would say about themselves ‘I sound so common’ but we all got used to it.

“When the programme was being launched I saw that first episode so many times that in the end I could quote myself in advance. Some of the children, like Bailey and Ryan, have caught the public’s imagination but they have both been really chilled about it. We did think about changing the school motto to ‘do you like my eyebrows?’ after Bailey shaved hers off.”

Mr Mitchell is Dewsbury born and bred, so is working in the heart of his own community, though he now lives in Pontefract with wife Lisa, a geography teacher, and his three daughters aged six to 13.

His path into teaching was not entirely straightforward. After school, where he says he was a geek, he took a language degree in Edinburgh. He then went into banking and worked in Paris for three years as a financial and legal translator before retraining and beginning his first teaching job in Knaresborough at the age of 27.

His celebrity status has led to offers, from bigger jobs to big speaking engagements, but for those who think Mr Mitchell oozes ambition, confidence and leadership his response is surprising.

“I was asked to speak in front of 2,000 people at an education conference but I turned it down, I was too nervous. I have had to learn to be a leader. When I started teaching I thought I might make head of department by 50.”

He has also been approached about potential jobs at bigger schools, but has not pursued any of them. He has however shared a sofa on the Alan Titchmarsh Show with Ryan and assistant head Matthew Burton and will take part in a game show for charity.

“I think that’s enough. I won’t do any more than that.”

As for Thornhill Academy, parents were not exactly beating a path to its door before it was featured on televison, but they are now. Open day saw three times as many people attend as usual, so there are signs pupil numbers could edge up from 760 closer to the 900 capacity. The school is also improving and now has an Ofsted “good” report after once being among the worst schools in the country. In the past, more affluent parents would choose to take their children further afield, but after Educating Yorkshire Mr Mitchell is likely to succeed in his objective of changing that.

The series was filmed at the beginning of the year so, for those who need an update, I can report that Mr Moses did indeed receive many offers of companionship – but he had already found a girlfriend and is still in a happy relationship with her. Mr Steer continues to live with his allergies but recovered from the particularly nasty bout caught on film; and Mr Burton, he of the skinny suits and shirts, has been out and bought bigger shirts.

As for Mr Mitchell, he says he isn’t going anywhere soon.

“I have barely scratched the surface of what I want to do here. I wouldn’t want this programme to change the natural path of my career and I don’t think it will. I am in love with this place.”

How Channel 4 found its school

Thornhill Academy was created in December 2012. It was previously Thornhill High School and The Community Science College@Thornhill

Educating Yorkshire is a follow-up to the series Educating Essex

There was interest from about 100 schools in starring in the new series after a call went out from the production team to all schools classed as “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted

The director, David Brindley also directs One Born Every Minute, featuring the maternity unit at Leeds General Infirmary.