Mister Firth: Meet the Yorkshire primary school teacher bringing comedy to 155k Instagram followers

His mock-ups range from an investigative case being set up after a disgruntled parent reports a child’s jumper as missing to a breaking news bulletin on how a wasp’s sudden arrival plunged a classroom into chaos.

Then, there’s the TV spin-offs; Escape to the Classroom, Sir David Attenborough narrations, I’m a Teacher Get Me Out of Here!, and post-football-match-style interviews reflecting on the handling of parents’ evening or a lively sports day.

What started as a “few daft videos” has unexpectedly snowballed. “I only started it for me as a way to decompress and poke a bit of fun at a job that can be quite hard,” says Jordan, a 34-year-old Yorkshireman.

"I guess (the content) is very relatable to anyone who has either done the job or can remember their time at primary school. There’s so many shared experiences that we have all had.”

Like many of us, Jordan, who teaches six and seven-year-olds in Huddersfield, was looking for ways to keep busy during the Covid pandemic and started to create skits, which he shared on what was then Twitter.

Off the back of the videos, he was approached by TV executives to present a series of lessons for youngsters who couldn’t go to school, for a time becoming one of the faces of BBC Bitesize.

When normality returned, his content “fell by the wayside”, but 18 months ago, Jordan started producing comedy videos once again, this time sharing them to audiences on TikTok and Instagram, where his content has really taken off.

Though he keeps the posts generic, Jordan says there is plenty of inspiration for his videos. As well as ideas coming from his own experiences and chats in the staffroom, he also receives messages from other teachers through his social media channels or via the Help Me I’m a Teacher podcast, which he hosts with a former colleague.

“The good - and bad - thing about social media is that you will always find someone who has a relatable experience to you," he muses. “Whilst teaching is a job where no two days are ever the same, so many people’s experiences are very similar and I get a lot of comments on my videos like ‘same, that’s happened to me’.

"I think there’s a lot of teacher social media out there that can talk about the stress of the profession and things that might need reform and I am on board with that type of content, it’s important, but I also think we need some light relief in there too.

“Teaching is a job that is just laced in human interaction and really funny things that happen outside of all the stress. It can be a very comical profession to be in, and if you’re sat in a staffroom, teachers are (often) sharing stories.”

Teaching wasn’t a career path that Jordan particularly had in mind. But a stranger planted the seed more than a decade ago, after he had studied a degree in product design at York St John university.

During his student days, and for a time afterwards, Jordan worked in a tea and coffee shop in the city. "I remember talking to a customer one day, a lady who had come in, and I was explaining about a certain type of tea and where it was from, how it was manufactured and stuff,” he recalls.

"She went ‘oh right, you’d make a good teacher’. She didn’t buy any tea so clearly I’m not a good salesman...but fourteen years later, that throwaway comment that woman made has had quite a big impact on my life.”

Her words inspired Jordan to begin volunteering in schools and he later got a role as a teaching assistant before training to become a teacher. Being in the profession brings authenticity to his social media videos, he says.

“I do occasionally get asked if I’m actually a teacher - yes I am, I don’t have a room in my house that I decorate like a classroom,” he laughs. “I think part of what’s helped my page to do so well is that most people can clearly see that I’m doing the job, that I’m living it.”

His videos are typically filmed in a corner of his classroom (away from any identifying details of the school or pupils, of course) and for some of them, he’s roped in a colleague. Most staff, however, would run a mile if he was to approach them with his phone out and an idea for a video, he admits. “I think it’s a busman’s holiday. They see enough of me in school.”

For Leeds United fan Jordan though, it’s a way to channel his energy, a mechanism for unwinding after long days of teaching, marking, and then preparation for another day of classroom learning.

“The challenges around teaching have always been that the workload is really difficult,” he reflects. “I know that gets a lot of eye rolls from people outside of teaching but it is really intense - there’s the teaching, the planning, the marking, the setting up for the next day, data, paperwork, meetings...

“The priority when you’re in school is teaching, and the children, and when you do that, that’s what makes things worthwhile…It’s great, it’s amazing, I love those interactions, being stood at the front of the class, and sharing in little moments.”

In both the brighter moments and the tougher ones, laughter is his crutch. “My mechanism throughout life continues to be humour and making a joke about something. If you laugh at something, it takes away a lot of its power…

"My colleagues and I have such a laugh on a lunchtime and even if it’s 15 minutes together after a full-on morning, it just hits the reset button so well. It’s nice to be able to try and do that for the wider teacher community through my videos.”

- To view Jordan’s videos, see mister_firth on Instagram.