Do programmes like Waterloo Road hurt UK education's reputation?

Professor Kit Field of the University of Wolverhampton asks whether media coverage of education devalues the experiences of pupils and whether more positive programming is required:

Over some two or three days, I thought it would be very interesting to gain a picture of the media's impression of schools and education.

My local newspaper carried two stories on positive comments made by OfSTED about the support and care two local schools provided for children. I know that all involved in education hate TV programmes about schools, but I also watched Waterloo Road and Educating Essex.

Both seemed to be dealing with how young people learn to cope with relationship issues, and how these can affect behaviour and consequently performance. Indeed, Waterloo Road dealt with the relationships between teachers and the headteacher and Educating Essex covered relationships between two sisters and their mother.

Watching the programmes and noting the successes of schools supporting pupils revealed conflicting pictures and brought to mind some research that I undertook several years ago. I asked a range of people to recall incidents from their own education, which revealed that they may be taught one thing in the classroom, but learnt the exact opposite outside it. Whether schools are consistent in how they approach sensitive subjects appears to have a major impact on the outcomes.

For example, one person commented how, after they had been caught smoking back in the seventies, they were invited to 'come clean' and own up to anything else they had done. The person admitted to 'smoking a joint' and was immediately suspended from school. The person remembers that at the very same time they had been following a programme in 'form time', which promoted 'honesty is the best policy'.