FROM Sixteen: Class of 2021 to Educating Yorkshire, there have been so many documentary series about school life you could be forgiven for thinking one more was a piece of homework too far.
Yet there is something extraordinary about Don’t Exclude Me (BBC2, Thursday, 9pm) that makes it well worth anyone’s time, be they a parent, grandparent or other carer.
Natasha Cox and Peter Coventry’s film is set in Milton Hall Primary in Southend-on-Sea. Across England the number of exclusions has risen to its highest in a decade – and that was before the pandemic. In Scotland, the trend has been downwards since 2006/7, with 14,990 cases in 2018/19, a fall of 3391 from previous tally.
Don’t Exclude Me focuses on what’s happening in primary schools. In the UK, narrator Vicky McClure tells viewers, the rate of exclusions for 5-6 year-olds has doubled in the last three years, and 89% of exclusions were for boys.
In the first of two episodes the cameras follow Oscar, six, Jack, eight, and Olivia, nine. All three have been regularly excluded because of disruptive behaviour – in some cases hitting – that puts themselves or others at risk. The school has been trying to get to the root of the problems, but nothing works for long before it is back to square one again. The pupils are upset, ditto their parents, teachers and classmates whose education is being disrupted. Everyone wants to do the right thing, but what is that in these circumstances?
Enter Marie Gentles, a specialist in child behaviour who has devised her own system and techniques for dealing with disruptive youngsters.
Gentles’ mother was a foster carer, so the house was always busy with youngsters.
The Milton Hall youngsters warm to the visitor immediately, and it’s a fair bet viewers won’t be far behind. Gentles is the Mary Poppins of behaviour problems, fizzing with good sense, optimism and cheer.
One of her simple but effective techniques is to tell children to do something and end the sentence with thank you. So you say, “Put your book away, thank you” rather than “Can you put your book away please?” which leaves room for doubt and negotiation.
It is not all as straightforward as changing your language. Turning bad behaviour into good is a complex business, and the documentary, to its credit, does not shy away from that. There are no miracles here, just some insecure youngsters and adults trying to do their best by them.
If you watched Prince Philip: the Royal Family Remembers this week (what do you mean, “Aye, right”?), you will know that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh tended to be tickled pink if they went on a visit and something went wrong. They were so used to everything being perfect, you see, that any deviation from the normal routine was a source of amusement.
Similar principles lie behind the success of The Goes Wrong Show (BBC1, Monday, 8.30pm). The idea is simplicity itself: a fictional am-dram society puts on plays and, er, things go wrong. In the first episode the play is Summer Once Again … Again, a First World War-set, faux Downton Abbey piece complete with hot and cold running toffs and servants preparing to welcome home the young master.
This kind of comedy is a hard trick to pull off, even if Eric and Ernie’s plays and Victoria Wood’s Acorn Antiques made it seem easy.
Granted, The Goes Wrong Show indulges in a lot of broad brush humour but the rate of gags is such that you will find yourself giggling eventually. If you like the sadly departed Ghosts (still available on iPlayer), giving this half hour caper a try is the right move.
“You’re watching the BBC,” deadpans the host during a typically outrageous first episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (BBC1, Monday, 12.20am). It is safe to say the contest to find the UK’s finest drag queen is not your run of the mill BBC programming. Check out that past midnight transmission time for a start.
This year the group of 12 drag queens competing for a trip to Hollywood to make their own series includes Scarlett Harlett, who describes herself as “the Danny Dyer of drag”, Choriza May (from Spain, now living in Newcastle), and the zombie-like Charity Kase, complete with bloodied face.
Presiding over the fun and games and runway sessions are regular judges Graham Norton and Michelle Visage, who are joined this week by Matt “Great British Bake Off” Lucas.
Some of the first week’s best moments are the quietly moving ones, when the contestants speak about the strain and isolation of lockdown. In the main, though, all concerned just want to turn the volume up to 11 on everything and have fun.
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