Educating Yorkshire star Mel Delaney-Hudson initially rejected idea of doing show
Educating Yorkshire's Mel Delaney-Hudson, the assistant headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy, was initially reluctant to agree to do the Channel 4 show because she feared the secondary school students would come across differently on TV.
Educating Yorkshire's Mel Delaney-Hudson initially refused to do the show.
The 44-year-old assistant headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy was "petrified" that the students at the secondary school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, would come across differently on the Channel 4 programme - which follows the everyday lives of the staff and students at the school - than how the staff know them.
But after getting reassurances from the series editor Kate Walker, Mel agreed to do Educating Yorkshire a "week before the deadline".
Speaking during a Q+A session hosted by TV presenter Angellica Bell, 49, at the Educating Yorkshire series two launch party at Pimlico Academy, London, on Wednesday (27.08.25), attended by BANG Showbiz, Mel admitted: "I was petrified. Well, not just that, my gut said I live in the local community, my children went to Thornhill Community Academy, and my focus was about making sure those kids came across exactly how we know them to be.
"So, we had a lot of open dialogue, and - not that I find it hard to trust anyone - but if we're being completely transparent, me and Kate sat down and said, 'You're here to make a programme, I'm here to teach, and these kids come first, and that's it.'
"So, before I knew exactly where we were going with it, it's a no from me. Absolutely no because [the students] are more important than anything that's going out on Sunday at 8pm."
Also speaking in the Q+A session, Zoe Ali, deputy headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy, said other staff members had reservations about doing Educating Yorkshire.
She said: "We had lots of conversations about is this the right thing to do? You have to keep coming back to the fundamental reason why we've agreed to do it."
Zoe also highlighted that the staff who agreed to star in the Channel 4 show had put themselves in a "vulnerable" position by opening themselves up to scrutiny.
She said: "By agreeing to do this, we're putting ourselves out there, and we're putting ourselves open to scrutiny.
"It doesn't matter how good you are at your job, or how great the decisions you make, there's always going to be someone somewhere who disagrees or has something negative to say.
"And with social media as it is now, it's even easier to do that, you know with all these keyboard warriors who want to say what they want to say.
"We've put ourselves in a place of feeling quite vulnerable because you could be confident at your job - and we are, we make these decisions all day, every day.
"But, suddenly, when you see yourself on screen and you know there's a camera watching you, you start second-guessing some of the things that you would normally do naturally."
The staff and the students have no idea what has been filmed on the "65 cameras" dotted around a "selection of offices, communal areas, the staff room and a number of classrooms" - which are "recorded on four streams".
So, Educating Yorkshire's production team had conversations "every day" with the teachers and children - who also use "25 radio mics" - about what had been captured on film.
And Zoe said the production company being fully transparent was the key to building trust.
She added: "The relationship with the production team was so important.
"We needed to build that trust to know that you understood that we were making ourselves really vulnerable."
Educating Yorkshire is available to watch and stream on Channel 4 at 8pm on Sunday, August 31.
