educating yorkshire media

1. Educating Yorkshire
A 4od Documentary
A 4od Documentary

2. What is it?
• Educating Yorkshire is British observational documentary, aimed to show the
audience what a modern day school is like at Thornhill Community Academy, a
secondary school in West Yorkshire. Every episode it follows a new group of
student/s and teachers, with a new story in order to show the different dynamics
of school life. First aired September 2013, it received outstanding critical acclaim,
with it winning the Best Documentary Programme at the National Television
Awards.

3. We first hear
a bell to
signal the
start of the
show-symbolises
the start of a
lesson etc. as
well, so the
audience
immediately
know what
they are
watching.
Then has a montage
of clips (non
continuity)from
various episodes. This
gives the audience an
idea of what the show
is like to entice them.
The editors have
purposely picked the
most interesting,
emotional clips in
order to capture their
attention.
A voiceover
begins which
matches the
clips being
shown on
screen. This
helps to
introduce the
show so that the
audience knows
as much about it
as possible to
entice them
ever further to
watch.
The title screen
then comes up
to symbolise the
end of the
montage and
the start of the
show. This then
also lets the
audience know
exactly what
they’re
watching.
The episode then
begins with clips
of what this
episode is
regarding. This
helps to set the
scene and to also
introduce the
characters of this
episode. This
layout is the same
for every episode.
The same voice as
heard in the
opening montage is
heard to describe
what’s going on.
This means the
audience are never
not sure about
what’s going on,
and also helps in
getting to know the
characters better.
The first issue
that is shown
on screen is
always an
interesting one.
This aids in
maintaining the
viewers
attention.
In the interviews the
interviewer cannot be
seen- only the
interviewee. This rids
of all distractions and
means the audience
can focus entirely on
what is being said
interviewee. This also
makes it seem like the
documentarian has less
of an influence on what
is being said. This is
important as it is an
observational
documentary.
When more simple clips
are being shown, like the
students going to their
classes, the end of a scene
or interviews being heard,
there tends to be music
over the top. This music is
always the same in every
episode and always
matches the scene. Such as
when more sad issues are
heard, the music is slow,
but when it’s happy the
music is more fast and
upbeat. This helps to
create an atmosphere.
There is also a
hashtag at the end
of a part of the
documentary
(before the advert).
This aids in gaining
more attention for
the programme as
people can then talk
about it on media
sites, hopefully
gaining them more
views.
Stylistic Features
At the end of every
episode it shows what’s
on next week. This cliff
hanger effect will entice
the viewers further as
they want to know the
outcome of the events
shown, and they know
there’s only one way to
find out what happens.
Therefore they shall gain
even more viewers for
next weeks episode.

4. How effective were these stylistic features?
• The hashtag ‘#educatingyorkshire proved to be particularly useful in gaining more attention through twitter users.
This is evident by the fact that it led to two of the characters being trended in the UK, and 126,000 tweets being
made about it- becoming the most tweeted about show of the day. This helped to gain more and more viewers as
other twitter users will have seen these trends and tweets and wanted to watch also. Louis Tomlinson, a member
of One Direction, also tweeted on the subject by calling Ryan a legend- leading to him receive more than 45,000
retweets and was favourited by more than 59,000 users. With every episode gaining between 3.53 million and
4.76 million, it is clear that these stylistic features were extremely effective in capturing the attention of the target
audience.
• Emotional scenes were also very prominent in this documentary, particularly one in episode 8. It involved a Year
11 boy named Musharaf who has a severe stammer, which is preventing him from achieving a C in his English
GCSE as he needed to recite a poem. Determined to help him pass, his teacher, Mr Burton, tells him to listen to
music with headphones as he practises reading aloud his poem. It is then we see Musharaf speaking almost
fluently, with him getting very emotional saying ‘at last, I have a voice’. This proved to be extremely effective,
being described as ‘’one of the most moving moments of the TV year’’ by The Independent and Jessica Ennis,
Olympic Gold medallist tweeting ‘’ I have been full on weeping for about 7 minutes thanks to Educating Yorkshire.
What an incredible programme’. This makes it evident that all people across Britain were extremely touched by
this emotional moment and encouraged others to watch the show.
• By having a variety of different issues shown, it then also makes the show more relatable. Many other people
have or are experiencing similar situations in their school life, so it is then more interesting for them to watch.
This then also gains in attracting more viewers as people will have felt similar emotions etc. to the students or
teachers.

5. Camera Angles
• Due to the cameras mostly being stationary on walls and in the corridors, it was
hard to achieve a range of camera angles. However, we did see many basic
camera angles such as close ups. These were used to portray emotions,
particularly negative ones. We could then see the pain or anguish on the
characters faces, encouraging the audience to subconsciously feel the same.
• Medium shots were also used a lot to show the scene and atmosphere. Here we
could see a whole classroom for example, and were then able to get more of an
idea of what it was like. We could also then see more of the students and
teachers and their reactions to events.
• Long shots were also used by unstationary cameras to show the outside of the
school in between different scenes. This helped firstly to mark the end of one clip
so the audience were aware the documanerty was then focusing on a different
issue, but it also helped to gain more of an atmosphere on the school
environment.