This was such a missed opportunity as the programme was built on so many unstable premises. Against a backdrop of 1.3 million pupils in good or outstanding schools and nearly 50% of all school leavers going to university, the programme tried to demonstrate social mobility was either falling and/or failing.
This programme then marched forward with this presumed assumption and then chose families and children from the very lowest strata of society that further unbalanced the programme.
Many of the children that the programme singled out appeared precocious not gifted, whilst this is a subjective judgement I certainly was not convinced. To rely on an unmeasurable school assertion that these pupils were gifted on the the able, gifted, talented scale is insufficiently sound foundations to base this show on, I felt manipulated and even cheated here.
The tone was a miserable narrator, sentimental music to promote an emotional reaction in the viewer this is deeply manipulative.
My last criticism is the most damming, one of the teacher's categorically stated that a pupils advancement academically wholly rested on familial support. The programme crossed the line by not fully reiterating this point and rebalancing the responsibility of parents, schools are not, should not, and will never be parental substitutes.
I would suggest this programme could be categorised as "poverty porn", rather than showing any reasoned insight into the levers within the family that suppress academic success and how, if anything can be done to counteract this.
