Must do better: new series of Educating Yorkshire is heartening but superficial

The Channel 4 docuseries returns with another look at the challenges facing schools, writes Louis Chilton. Plus, Liz Hurley keeps a high-camp reality show alive, and Sheridan Smith is utterly believable in a true crime story worth sharing

- Louis Chilton

It's been 14 years since Educating Essex first aired on Channel 4, giving audiences up and down the country a peek into the lives of the students and teachers in a state secondary school.

The docuseries proved a hit, and yielded four followups - focusing on schools in Yorkshire, London's East End, Cardiff, and Greater Manchester. A second series returning to the same Mancunian school was cut short when the headmaster resigned amid an unrelated scandal; a truncated four-episode season aired in late 2020.

In this light, it is probably easy to understand why producers would choose to return to Yorkshire, and the Dewsbury-based Thornhill Community Academy, for their new reboot. Back in 2013, Educating Yorkshire was an unmitigated hit, earning the show a National Television Award, with diligent teacher Matthew Burton in particular charming viewers.

Twelve years later, Burton is now headteacher of the school – though the daily struggles of students and staff are mostly the same as ever.

The first episode of the new Educating Yorkshire focuses on two year 8 children - Amy, a bright but self-critical girl with Tourette's Syndrome, and Riley, a boy who keeps acting out in class.

"Generations Z and Alpha are often framed as halfhuman, half-mobile phone - and yet, here, we can see they're just children being children"

We get a short snapshot of their lives and dilemmas, and watch as the school faculty attempts to help them. For Amy, it's a social problem - the turbulent friendship dynamics that are so common among teenagers. Riley, on the other hand, seems at first to be a classic case of ADHD - but, after some questioning, it seems that the real problem might be dietary. It ain't his noggin; it's his Weetabix.

A friend of mine who works in the education system once described the