Not so long ago, schools were so seduced by the thought of air time that they’d sign up to any idea a TV producer put in front of them. Now they tread more warily and only sign up for a five-day return visit. A sort of cultural meet and greet. What the British Council calls a trade fair. School Swap – The Class Divide (ITV 1) suggested a full-on reality immersion – private and state schools trading pupils and teachers – but it was soon clear that both parties were just going for the minor pedicure option.
Mark Mortimer, former soldier and now headteacher of £27,000 per year Warminster school, and custodian of a Christopher Wren door and a tudor chair, said he wasn’t much of a numbers man, but his approach to Operation Damage Limitation seemed planned to the last ration of chocolate.
It was Mortimer and his students who were to first engage with the enemy: Bemrose secondary school in Derby. We never heard Mortimer’s last briefing to John, Xander and Katie. But it probably went like this. “It’s only five days, so keep your heads down chaps. Don’t get too boastful about how many more advantages your parents have worked so hard to give you. Roll with the punches and remember: it’ll look great on your UCAS forms.”
Jo Ward, Bemrose’s headteacher, took a more que sera, sera approach. Trying to keep too many balls in the air has left her breathless and reduced to firing out general darts. “Some of the worst teachers are recruited into the private system,” she offered.
Mark took two long breaths of pure Zen and ignored that. However, Ward’s next suggestion that it was who you knew rather than what you knew, could not go unanswered. “I don’t think that’s the case at Warminster,” he said as kindly as possible.
That apart, it was trial by smile. The voiceover did mention a few key facts in passing. Warminster has the same number of pupils but twice as many teachers as Bemrose. Inequalities Studies – an A-level option on the sociology course at Warminster – are integrated in each area of the curriculum at Bemrose. Throughout the hour-long episode, inequality was never seriously acknowledged, though. This was documentary TV so lite as to be almost pointless.
One or two minor gems slipped out. Warminster’s Katie did concede that Bemrose might suit her as the short hours were quite appealing. “I basically just like baking, listening to music and living in a messy room. I quite fancy being a primary school teacher,” she said. Not that she appeared to have much idea of what a primary teacher did, but there’s plenty of time for Warminster’s careers advisers to put her right. More telling still was that Jonathan, who had been written off in maths at Warminster, was, at Bemrose, assessed as capable of getting a grade A at GCSE. He was thrilled that years of being told he was a bit dim had finally been challenged.
What was also being challenged was the whole notion of private schools improving their pupils’ results. Warminster had dumped Jonathan on the maths scrapheap; at Bemrose he would have been expected to improve. This incident won’t have made great viewing for a government obsessed by failing schools, but as so little was made of it, it can probably be brushed aside. After all, the Warminster pupils were portrayed as beacons of hope here, offering words of comfort to the less fortunate. Mortimer could consider Operation Damage Limitation to be a total success – but as a TV show it had no depth, no insight, no point.
Much the same could be said of Terror on Everest: Surviving the Nepal Earthquake (Channel 4), which was essentially a collection of images and selfies that people took on their phones during April’s earthquake. While films of avalanches and falling buildings have a certain voyeuristic fascination, they do no more than catch a moment in time. You’d expect a documentary-maker to supply some more context, but little came. People survived because they were lucky, and it’s going to happen again some day, for sure. It’s going to happen again because Nepal can’t afford to build earthquake-resistant buildings, and the high value of the tourist climbing trade will always make it worthwhile for some sherpas to risk their lives on avalanche routes. Still, some progress is being made. At least the devastation can now be filmed on selfie sticks.
