Educating Yorkshire 2025: Thornhill Community Academy returns with Matthew Burton as head in Channel 4 doc

The last time that Educating Yorkshire aired in 2013 and 2014, David Cameron was Prime Minister of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, the UK was still part of the European Union, the idea of a pandemic closing schools and cancelling exams seemed laughable and Matthew Burton, for one, was a dedicated young teacher at Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury who was desperate to bring out the best in his students.

Obviously, only the latter remains the case after the intervening 11 years, except that Mr Burton’s office door now says ‘Headteacher’.

And it is as leader of more than 900 students and 100 staff that he will be reunited with TV viewers when the latest series of the Channel 4 show airs on Sunday.

The success of the Educating series – Yorkshire came after the Essex version in 2011 and was followed by the East End, Cardiff and Greater Manchester – stems from school being a universal theme, he suggests.

“Every single person has been to school and everybody, at some stage or another within that journey, has felt as if something's not gone right. And I suppose your experience of how people have helped you to get through that situation, to a greater or lesser extent, (means) you've got some sort of buy into that,” says Matthew.

“Teachers don't do things so that you remember them in six months’ time, they do things so that you look back in 20 years’ time and think: ‘That was a bit of a crossroads in my life’.”

Matthew himself is a good example of that, having played a memorable part of the first series when he was involved in one of the most emotional storylines, helping pupil Musharaf to overcome his stammer using music.

These stories of transforming his young peoples’ lives never leave him – Matthew himself was bullied at school but it was quickly resolved when he told a teacher, he says – so he continues with active teaching time throughout the school year. But as head, he has a clear and simple vision for the school - ‘be nice, work hard’.

“Education in 2025 is a busy and vibrant but wonderful place to be,” he says. “Teachers and staff in schools do an absolutely incredible job, day in, day out, helping students.

"There are certain days that I suppose parents and carers and community members see more than others in schools, but the care and the support and the ambition and the stretch and the challenge that teachers will put in, day in, day out, lesson in, lesson out, it's a really important thing to talk about on a national scale, and if we're a bit of a microcosm of that, then it's a privilege to be given that opportunity."

Millions tuned in every week to watch the first series of Educating Yorkshire, with straight-talking former head Jonny Mitchell, who has since moved to a school in Leeds, trying to turn around the school’s fortunes and reputation.

Thornhill Community Academy, as of February 2023, is considered ‘Good’ by Ofsted – but with ‘outstanding’ leadership and management – and these days is also part of the SHARE Multi Academy Trust.

Over the last 10 years, though, all schools have faced challenges like the continued emergence of social media and the upheaval of the Covid-19 lockdowns.

At a time when there is media scrutiny on the profession – and recruitment stalls as nearly a third leave the job within five years of qualifying – Matthew hopes the show can highlight the realities and impact of staff on students.

He says: “There aren't many professions whereby you can come away from every day thinking ‘at least I've made a positive decision. I've helped somebody make a positive decision, or had a meaningful impact on somebody's life’.

"We talk here about ‘every second, every minute, of every hour’ is important, and ‘every interaction is an intervention’.

"We can't forget that, being in a school for seven to eight hours, you've got four or five back-to-back West End shows, because when you are on those corridors, you are teacher, and whatever might be going on behind the scenes, however difficult or challenging, you're on show.

"So you've got to give that consistent picture, because students rely on you. And it’s a real badge of honour that they do.”

Assistant head Mel Delaney-Hudson only played a minor part in the 2014 show but is described as “Thornhill through and through” and remembers the impact of that first series.

“It was surreal, really surreal,” she says. “I weren’t on it very much, I were in the background a little bit but didn't have any part in any episodes. And then to be sat at home in my jogging bottoms watching my colleague and my friend at the BAFTAs, it was just like... this is absolutely bonkers.”

Mel started as a teaching assistant and then trained on the job to become a teacher while she was a single mother, qualifying aged 31. She was quickly promoted to head of aaths and then became assistant head for SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) and inclusion, and is passionate about giving all children the opportunity to thrive in mainstream education.

The school’s role in the wider area is important to her as well. Mel lives in the area and her own children went to the school, and she says that because it is a deprived location “we were not on a level playing field all the time in Dewsbury”.

She says: "To watch what I see as our community and our family walk out of these doors with the outcomes that they're getting at the minute – which for us, we're immensely proud that they're above national average – I think to showcase that was really important.”

Managing student conduct will always be part of schooling, of course, and deputy head Zoe Ali is in charge of attendance and behaviour at Thornhill. She has overseen some eye-catching schemes – one being her ‘attendance bus’, or as she likes to call it ‘the fun bus’, which is driven around the community, scooping up truanting students and door-stepping frequent non-attenders.

She also has to conduct regular searches for banned items, raging from comedic contraband to suspected weapons.

It makes sense because, actually, at one point she did fancy a career in the police.

“I feel like I'm a detective,” she laughs, “I spend my life searching for vapes and taking mobile phones and interviewing students.”

For all the changes in schools and the world over the years since the last series, one thing is certain.

“Teenagers are teenagers, (whether that’s) teenagers 20 years ago or teenagers 10 years ago. They’ve still got hormones,” says Mel.

"We all know teenagers are growing, they're tired, so the challenges that they face, they're not dissimilar to when the last series went out. I just think that we have a lot more strategies and a lot more intervention now than what we possibly did 20 years ago, to be able to help them cope better.”

Matthew adds: “Terrifyingly, though, those challenges are now in ultra high definition...”

Educating Yorkshire returns to Channel 4 on Sunday at 8pm.