Channel 4 to go back to school with Educating Yorkshire

Channel 4 is dusting off Educating Yorkshire, with a new series to be set at Thornhill Community Academy more than a decade after the original series.  

The Twofour programme will follow Mr Burton and his staff and students throughout the school year, with Burton now the headteacher at Thornhill. He became a standout player in the 2013 series alongside his student Musharaf, as the teacher and student worked together to overcome the latter’s stammer.  

While the school is on the up, Burton and his staff still face challenges, including the rise in teenage anxiety, a post-Covid national attendance crisis, the influence of mobiles and social media and difficulties in recruiting and retaining teachers.  

Twofour is currently crewing up and the series will be filmed over 2024/2025 with TX set for the end of next year. 4Skills will fund the training and development of a number of roles on the production, working closely with the indie to identify opportunities for Yorkshire based talent to progress in different areas. 

Alisa Pomeroy, head of docs and factual entertainment, and Rita Daniels, commissioned the series. David Brindley is exec producing alongside Educating… creators Grace Reynolds and David Clews, with Francesca Kybert as production exec. ITV Studios will handle global sales.   

Educating Yorkshire 2025 (w/t) is the first series to be commissioned in the Educating…brand since Educating Greater Manchester, which aired in 2020.  

C4 said that the Yorkshire-set series has proven to be one of the best performing factual shows on streaming and its return plays into the PSB’s Fast Forward strategy to transition into a public service streamer.  

Casting a lens on modern Britain 

Clews, who also exec produced the previous Educating… instalments, told Broadcast the new series will be a “reimagination” of the original series.  

“We don’t want to feel like we’re telling the same stories the same way,” he explained. “Creatively, we’ll still use the fixed rig in the way that we did before and follow the stories in an unobtrusive way. But we’ve got ambition for this to look and feel bigger and better than ever before.” 

The new run will be filmed through fixed-rig, alongside crew shots and footage filmed inside and outside of the school. Clews said that the team is also considering how to use modern technology to “scale up” the production, such as drone footage.  

As for the topics tackled in the series, the exec producer said a lot has changed for teenagers and teachers in the past decade. The time “felt right” to return to the most popular school in the franchise to highlight the issues affecting teenagers and teachers in 2025.  

“We’ve always celebrated the good work that teachers and all the staff do in the schools and we definitely want to be able to do that again, but through the lens of 2025,” he elaborated.  “We want to look at that bigger question of ‘what is modern Britain?’ through the eyes of a school that we all know and love.” 

The prospect of Educating Yorkshire returning to TV screens has been in the mix for a long time, Clews said. His team had kept in touch with Burton since 2013 and when he was appointed head teacher at Thornhill four years ago, they found their reason to return to the school.  

Burton was keen to have them back but wanted to wait until the time was right for him and the school. The school had also become part of an academy trust since the original series, which added an extra layer of complexity to bringing the cameras back. 

Clews added that Daniels - who was a commissioner on the previous Educating… series - and Pomeroy “have always been excited” by the prospect of returning to Educating Yorkshire and were ready to commission once Burton gave the nod. 

Daniels said: “Telling the complex story of young people in Britain in 2025 is crucial for Channel 4, and what better way to do so than through this iconic, much-loved school. It will be fantastic to see Mr Burton in charge, and I look forward to watching him seize the reigns with full gusto.  

“Much has changed for British teenagers since we were last at Thornhill Academy, and it will be fascinating to see how practices have developed and adapted since the burgeoning impact of social media, the covid epidemic and the intense pressure to deliver good results.”  

Burton said:  “The national challenges the profession faces are well publicised, and at Thornhill, I’m really proud of how our staff and students work together to thrive through those. Our values - ‘work hard and be nice’ - are at the centre of all we do; I have no doubt that viewers will see those come to life in our brilliant community.”