Educating Essex

Educating Essex is a fly on the wall documentary as it records teachers and students in their natural environment over a period of time. The documentary focuses on Passmores Academy secondary school in Harlow, Essex. The show follows a group of GCSE students and there teachers, during the crucial year of there education. The school was fitted with 65 fixed cameras, from the corridors to the canteen, and from the headteacher's office to the detention hall. Recording with the fixed cameras lasted for seven weeks which was then edited down into a seven part series.


Episode one starts off with diagetic sound of the school bell followed by  a high angle shot giving the audience a general overview of the students and setting. A mid shot is used to show a teacher telling off students regarding their uniform, as he is the first member of staff we see it conveys to the audience that this could be a main important character within the documentary. A narrator is also present throughout the documentary when necessary. A brief long shot of the school field is used to display to the audience the setting again before a jump cut to a student and teacher, it is very fast paced at the beginning allowing the audience to see more in a short space of time. 


Most of the editing seems to be very basic to make the show as natural as possible, many interviews are filmed of students and teachers which allows the audience to see how each individual feels and sees each situation through out each episode. 


All of the techniques used all contribute to making the documentary as realistic as possible rather than staged, i believe that this has been done well.