As the Cardiff-based run of Channel 4’s school-set documentary series continues, it’s time to take a look at one of the most feared student sub-sections: teenage girls.
Episode 3 focuses on two tumultuous Year 10 pupils who need additional guidance from the Willows High School staff to stay on track.
First up there’s Katie, who seems comfortable with creative subjects like drama, but whose emotions can prove explosive as minor issues snowball into full-on tantrums.
“I think they do think I don’t care, but I do,” she opens up after a particularly volatile outburst. “I don’t want to be one of those people that when I leave school, they’re crying because they wish they could have done school better.”
Then there’s Megan, who also struggles with being vocally disruptive, and develops a habit of hopping into other people’s arguments and getting hugely wound up about them.
It’s down to the incredibly patient Mr Hennessy, Head of House Denbigh, to try and help the girls, listening to their problems and working through them without being condescending or pushing them further away.
“If she doesn’t get some positive experiences from leaving us, then I fear she’s one that might just say, ‘what’s the point?’,” he worries about Katie.
Gogglebox: The families
As we’ve already learned in previous episodes, he’s soft underneath his fearsome reputation for being strict and gruff. Can he help get the pair back on course before the end of the school year?
Channel 4, 9pm
