We identify school in controversial documentary

THE headteacher at one of Camden’s most popular secondary schools has hit out at a supply teacher for secretly filming pupils misbehaving in class.
Michael Shew, head of Acland Burghley in Tufnell Park, yesterday (Wednesday) confirmed that the school had featured on Channel 5’s hidden camera documentary Classroom Chaos after he was contacted by the New Journal.
The documentary, which has received widespread media coverage, showed pupils eating chocolate and crisps in lessons, swearing, telling a teacher to “take a nap” and appearing to search the internet for pornography during a media studies class. Mr Shew is furious with production company Films Of Record, warning that the programme’s makers used underhand tactics to film children without their permission and had opened up the possibility of legal action.
He said: “It is outrageous. There are human rights issues to do with filming without permission. It could now be that parents could sue the school although I don’t think they will because they are happy with what really goes on in the school. The film is not reflective of the 99 out of 100 lessons at the school and they know that.”
The programme was broadcast last Wednesday after footage was taken using cameras hidden in a briefcase and pinned to a coat buttonhole.
The documentary does not name the schools where secret filming took place and producers claim that they do not want individual schools used as scapegoats for a national problem of pupil bad behaviour.
Executive producer Roger Graef said: “I think this film has the potential to be force for change. We took great care to protect the identity of pupils, teachers and the schools filmed undercover. They were chosen at random by the supply teaching agency. This is not blaming any one school.”
But attempts to disguise the Burghley Road school failed when worried parents spotted clips of pupils gathering outside the school’s distinctive front gate and tall perimeter railings.
The school’s community police officer can also be identified.
Mr Shew, who was kept in the dark by the producers throughout, obtained a tape of the programme yesterday (Wednesday) following an interview with the New Journal. He later confirmed to a reporter that Acland Burghley had been part of the undercover sting.
Mr Shew said: “There is not classroom chaos at the school. I’m not being complacent. Of course, pupils shouldn’t be eating in class or be off focus. It is not acceptable – but that is not something that goes on throughout the school.”
The headteacher conceded that pornographic websites were occasionally a problem but added: “We have a firewall and filters. The difficulty is that new websites spring up everyday. I think the film shows that we handled it well. The pupil involved was taken out of the class and the situation was dealt with. Their parents would have been informed.”
Mr Shew also raised doubts over the premise of the documentary, questioning the validity of footage snatched by the same woman who was supposed to be controlling the class.
“It is all underhand,” he said. “It is all doing the school down. You have to look at her motivation. Teaching is a skilled job and you do not react in the way the teacher did in the film.”
The undercover supply teacher spent just one day at the school and left condemning children’s unruly behaviour in all the classes she handled. She used the fake name Silvia Thomas and is a former teacher who returned to the classroom after a 30 year break.
In her commentary, she said: “They (pupils) come in (to the classroom) blatantly getting the packets of crisps out as if to draw attention to themselves... I taught for one day in this school and had behavioural problems in most classes.”
Mr Shew said he would be contacting a supply teaching agency to see how Ms Thomas managed to get picked for the school.
Shortages of supply teachers in periods of high demand, he added, meant schools were forced to use a pool of stand-ins of varying quality.
The school recently scored a glowing inspection report and is so popular amongst parents that when Camden Council tried to change admissions criteria last year parents in Islington successfully challenged a new system which would have stopped them from applying.
Former pupils include hip-hop talent Ms Dynamite and Sarah Brown, wife of chancellor Gordon Brown.
Mr Shew added: “If parents are worried, then they come in and see what really goes on.”
A spokeswoman for Films Of Record would not be drawn on the supply teacher’s spell at Acland Burghley. She said: “This is meant to be exposing a national problem. It is not supposed to be a localised thing.”