‘I’ve watched them with interest to see how they’ve done...’
What happened next for the young stars of Channel 4 documentary series Educating Cardiff? Laura Clements tracks them down to find out...
FIVE years ago the trials and tribulations from the corridors and classrooms of a Welsh secondary school were beamed into living rooms across the nation in Channel 4’s documentary Educating Cardiff.
Over the eight-episode series, filmed at Willows High School in Tremorfa, viewers learned of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of some of the students and shared their heartache as they struggled with schoolwork and friendships.
Five years on, those hopeful babyfaced students are now adults and their schooldays are long behind them.
The question is, did they ever achieve what they set out to do and, looking back at the documentary, do they recognise their young selves?
COREY
Corey was only 12 when the series was filmed and was a typical rugbymad Year Eight pupil. His best mate in school was Gethin and the pair stood out for seemingly having nailed the true meaning of friendship. It is comforting to know, now aged 18, they are both still mates.
“We still go for food every now and then,” the teenager says. Corey works in finance for New Law Solicitors and has set up a desk at his home in Splott which he shares with his mum.
He briefly went to college after Willows High to study sport but dropped out to start work in October last year. His role mainly involves organising data, he says.
“It was hectic after the show,” he says. “School was actually quite hard after that. I got pretty overloaded, if I’m honest. I went off the map for a couple of years, ended up in a relationship.”
He dropped down to a part-time timetable for his final year and feels like school “let me down a little bit”. He can’t remember what he got in his GCSEs although thinks he got a B in one subject.
He is the one of only a handful who drives in his circle of friends from school (he is proud of his 15-plate Corsa) although he admits he hasn’t stayed in touch with all of them.
“I’m not really in touch with as many as I thought I would,” he says.
He adds: “I’ve done all right for myself. I’m more of a happy person now than when I was in school.”
Although he was known as a rugby player on Educating Cardiff, his main sport was football, he says. These days he’s into his boxing in a big way and has competed at national level for
Grange ABC. On the show the diminutive Corey came across as supercompetitive and super-smart, determined to succeed in all areas of schoolwork and not just his sport.
At the time he said: “I’m small and everyone tends to think you’re cute. Most of the time you get carried around everywhere.”
Now he is taking charge of his own path and is not afraid to make some ripples.
His dream is to “get out of my area”, he says. But there’s no great plan laid out before him. He converted to Islam a couple of years ago and goes to the local mosque, although he “needs to go more”, he says.
Introduced to the religion by his new group of friends, he found himself reading up on what it was like to be a Muslim and became more interested in it.
“It’s what I believe in now,” he says. “I was telling everyone I believed in it, so I committed. I was thinking about what people would think but it’s been well-received.
Despite his religion and his boxing, he doesn’t consider himself to be a “disciplined” person. “I like to party. Sometimes they don’t mix. Sometimes I just have those ‘whoops’ moments – those things you know you’re going to regret in the morning.
“I’ve had a tough time here and there, but my mum and dad have done well. We’ve still got a strong thing going on.
“It’s just life gets you in certain areas.”
Gethin is one thing that has stayed constant in his life. “He’s always got his head screwed on,” Corey says of his mate. “He’s always occupied. I’ll be doing my boxing, running around doing stuff, while Gethin will be home, cooking. He likes making Italian food.”
Looking back at his life since those carefree days in Educating Cardiff, Corey says: “It’s been like a zig-zag. I’m not like an adult yet. I still have that kid side of me.
“When you’re still young and 18 you’re going to make mistakes.”
GETHIN
Gethin and Corey were pitched headto-head fighting it out for the captaincy of their rugby team during the series. Gethin was always the quieter one of the two pals but in his speech to his teammates, he spoke from his heart.
“To be captain this year is really important to me and I’m willing to do what it takes,” he said earnestly. “I love the sport and I am willing to give it my all at all times.”
Does he remember that kid now he’s 18 and all grown up?
“I definitely recognise that person,”
Gethin laughs, just eight weeks away from his 19th birthday.
“I was a bit shy for the cameras during the series but I was definitely a cheeky character then and I’ve never lost my cheekiness.”
These days Gethin has a summer job working in a bar in Cardiff while he waits for the new college term to start. He is studying English at Cardiff and Vale College, with dreams of heading abroad to teach English as a foreign language. He lists the places he wants to go excitedly – Italy, Spain, France.
“I’m not thinking too far down the line,” he says. “But I want to go travelling. I just want to go and experience life – dating foreign girls and eating foreign food.”
His sporting career ended soon after the show due to a knee injury and he hasn’t played rugby since, he says. In fact, the past three years have been a “mad transition” from school and into adulthood.
“I’ve had a bit of a hectic life so far,” he says.
“The landlord put our house up for sale, which meant I had to go and live with my nan. Then I dropped out of college, partly so I could get a job and start earning money.”
He moved around a bit and had to wave goodbye to his moped and his beloved drum kit. “But everything is back on track now.”
He oozes positivity and energy as he speaks, despite the fact that he is just about to start a 12-hour shift in the bar that won’t finish until 2am.
During lockdown he taught himself Italian, he proudly announces. He practises by speaking the language in some of his favourite Italian restaurants in Cardiff. Is it true he loves cooking Italian too? “Yes,” he confirms with a laugh.
Willows High was “a little family,” he says, but one where “anything went”. “We were always having a laugh – that’s what I remember the most,” he recalls. “I got some good grades – C in English, B in RE, B in music and a C in numeracy.
“We are still like family now, although more so with people who weren’t really on the show.
“Me and Corey are mates but we’re both on different paths and have different friendship groups now.”
CORAL
In the final episode of the series, the limelight was firmly on sweet-natured Coral, a wannabe Hollywood actress who desperately wanted to show her dad just how talented she was.
When asked if she behaved herself at school, she said: “Yeah. No. No. Yeah. No. I don’t know. In my year I’m not the worst-behaved student. I’m not the best. But, you know, I’m okay.”
Five years on, she still harbours that acting dream and still talks chaotically and at breakneck speed.
Coral turned 18 last month and works in a salon at a gym in Cardiff. It’s a role that has grown from a Saturday job that she took while studying performing arts at St David’s College, although she didn’t finish her studies there. She said: “I just couldn’t do it. It was too hard. I shouldn’t have left.
It was just so cliquey. I didn’t want to be in the clique.”
For now she loves her job she says. “I love it so so much,” Coral adds. She hasn’t lost her bubbly nature, I say. “I think I’m even worse now,” she laughs.
She can’t look at her 13-year-old self though. “It makes me cringe, I just can’t,” she says.
The ambition to make it big in Hol
lywood is still “very, very true” but hasn’t happened yet. Not that Coral is letting that deter her. “I’m going to be famous,” she says.
Her 18-year-old self echoes the words she spoke five years ago: “I can see myself living in America. In New York. Far away. Hollywood. I’ll have my name in one of those block things. I will.”
She misses school “like crazy”, she says. “I can’t put into words how much I miss school. Just being around everyone and all the teachers.”
According to Vicky, the wellbeing officer at Willows High during the series, Coral always picked herself up. “For a girl of her age, she’s got to pick herself up a lot, I think,” Vicky ruminated in episode eight.
At the time Coral lived with her dad. Fast-forward to 2020 and she says hasn’t seen her dad for two years. She is matter-of-fact as she explains how she went into care and was fostered by her aunt. She does not want any sympathy.
“That’s just the way it was,” she says. “I just take every moment as it goes. I’m all grown up now, 18, gross. Why does anyone grow up? It’s just hard work. I have to pay my aunty rent and everything.”
JESSICCA
Jessicca was midway through her GCSEs when she featured in the very first episode. The studious and earnest pupil was eager and willing to learn and was often filmed with her head in a book.
Jessicca, now 21, has just graduated from Cardiff Metropolitan University with a first-class honours degree in computer game design and development.
Jessica Hornby She starts her first job next week working with data for a university project.
“Now that I’ve got my degree and have come out quite good, I can say yes, I do recognise that high-achieving person,” Jessicca says.
But there was a point where Jess, the “brains of Britain”, doubted herself and if she would ever reach the high standards her 16-year-old self had set.
“During the transition from school to college and to uni I hit so many obstacles,” Jessicca says. “I didn’t know who the 16-year-old Jess was – she was this idolised person I thought I would never see again.
“The jump from GCSEs to A-levels was bigger than I expected. I lost a lot of confidence and thought, ‘I’m not as great as I thought I was.’”
She hated college she says and struggled again during the first year at uni as she found it difficult to get to grips with the finer points of computer coding.
“I loved being in Educating Cardiff and I enjoyed the whole ride of that,” she said.
“I wish I had been a bit less conscientious so that when you go on to college you don’t have such a high bar to reach. Not reaching your own standards is when you start getting anxious.”
She thinks the way she was presented by the show was perhaps a little unfair. “They presented it like I had no friends at all, but I do have friends,” she says. “I’m not that shy. High school is just horrible – the cliques are very tight and it’s very hard to ingratiate yourself, so I just stuck with my own bracket of people.
“There was so much rumour and gossip – it just gets horrible.”
Would the 16-year-old Jess be proud of what the adult Jess has achieved? “I think she would be rather critical,” laughs Jessicca. “She thought she was so on top of everything and could do anything and go anywhere. She wouldn’t have expected the bumps that I have encountered since.”
GEORGIA
In Educating Cardiff’s sixth episode the focus was on Year 11 pupils Tyler and Georgia. Georgia’s story was particularly poignant as the cameras followed the teenager struggling with her own sense of self-worth and confidence.
Georgia, now 21, occasionally looks back at the clips and agrees she didn’t have much confidence back then.
Now with her own son, Leo, Georgia says: “I didn’t think I would go anywhere in life at the time. A lot has changed, I’ve grown up a lot. I look the same – I’m still blonde and ditzy – and I do recognise myself. But when I watch some of the clips back, I do cringe a bit.
“I just think part of me wants to show my kids when they’re older that you can get results and tell them how hard I worked.”
Georgia’s hard work certainly paid off – she got three Cs, four Bs and two A*s in her GCSEs and went on to college to study childcare and then health and social care.
“When I went to college I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” she said. “So I went into heath and social care and that was when I realised I wanted to do a job that helped someone. Caring is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.
“I love the people you meet and the stories you hear, especially from the older generation. I used to love sitting down with them with a cuppa and hearing their stories.”
Since having Leo, who has just turned one, life has changed for Georgia and she is reconsidering her options. “Things have changed now and I’ve been looking at going back to college and hairdressing.”
Her low self-esteem came from “just stuff that I’d gone through”, she says, adding that since leaving school she’d had help coming to terms with it.
“To be honest, Leo saved me more than anything,” she said. “When you’ve got someone looking up to you constantly, you can’t go back to that place.
“He’s like my little best friend – he gives me that drive in life now.”
JOY BALLARD
Joy Ballard was the headteacher at Willows High at the time of filming but had left for a new job on the Isle of Wight by the time the Educating Cardiff series was aired.
Even so, she has continued to watch her former pupils as a “quiet follower” to make sure they are all right.
There are three students who really stick in her mind from the series – primarily the stories of Leah and Jess in the first episode.
“The story was all about the differences between the two girls,” she says, speaking from the Isle of Wight. “Jess was the brains of Britain, with hardly any social skills, hiding away in the library, and she has now just finished university with a first-class honours degree.
“Leah was running around, driving everyone crazy, and she is just about to start her second year at university.”
The story of Georgia also weighed heavily on Joy’s mind. At the time of filming Georgia was struggling with anxiety and a lack of self-worth and the film portrayed “just how vulnerable she was”, Joy says.
“I just want to make sure some of the kids are okay,” Joy added. “I have watched them with interest to see how well they’ve done.”
When she first arrived at Willows High in September 2011, the school was among the worst-performing in the country.
In 2013 it was rated “unsatisfactory” by education watchdog Estyn and at the time Joy said the school was lucky to have escaped special measures.
Thanks to her approach to teaching, with an emphasis on caring for the students, Joy helped turn the school around.
In 2015, she was awarded Head of the Year at the Pearson Teaching Awards. The headteacher, who grew up in Southampton, moved 160 miles away to the Isle of Wight to be closer to her family, who she saw only at weekends when she was in Wales.
Moving to the Ryde Academy, she brought her unique caring approach and once again worked her magic to turn a struggling school around.
“I came to a school that was struggling and made it into a happy place,” she explains.
She admits, though, that she does miss life at Willows. “I miss all the characters and the people there, but you move on to a new school and meet new characters and people,” she says.
“I miss Wales unbelievably – especially the way the Welsh wear their heart on their sleeves.”