First year of secondary life caught on camera
AN ACADEMY is playing a starring role in a fly-on-the-wall documentary which lays bare the trials and tribulations of the first year at secondary school.
For a whole term, students at Firth Park Academy in Sheffield were under the watchful eyes of 36 TV cameras around the school grounds, as participants in the third CBBC series of Our School.
The crew homed in on 40 young people, both in and outside the classroom, as they learned a new way of school life, made new decisions and won over new friends.
In the first episode, which aired last week as pupils across the country returned to school, Olivia and Abdul embarked on their first day at the academy.
The highlight of the series was the opportunity for the two pupils to spend a week with a Kenyan school community, Memusi, to see for themselves the huge difference UK fundraising has made to the lives of young people.
The series also shows students meeting and working with celebrities, including England international rugby union player Ben Foden, Strictly Come Dancing professional Chloe Hewitt, and Great Britain’s Paralympic gold medal winner Claire Cashmore. Other notable events were a school sleepover, canoeing, and setting up ‘pop-up’ businesses at Meadowhall.
Dean Jones, the principal at the academy, said: “Inviting a television production team to be part of your school for more than a term, bringing cameras into lessons and along corridors, could be a daunting proposition.
“We hoped it would prove an opportunity to celebrate the many positive moments that happen in our school day by day, as well as increase the range of opportunities our students have in the first term of their transition to secondary school.
“I firmly believe both these goals have been achieved. The series shows students at Firth Park Academy are of positive character and full of potential, whilst their teachers care enough to go above and beyond for their students.”