As a headteacher, I used to get lots of odd emails. Sifting through my inbox is an aspect of my job that I do not miss! Once in a while, we would get a variation on the Nigerian Prince scam email, which was always a good laugh, but most of them just went straight in the bin. Very occasionally, there would be something out of the ordinary in my inbox that genuinely intrigued me, and today's post is about that kind of email. My initial reaction was that it was probably a scam, but something about it piqued my interest. It purported to come from the location manager of a TV company who was interested in using my school for some upcoming filming. The email didn't give much away but requested a meeting at my school, so I said yes.
So there I was a few weeks later, showing around not just a location manager but also a producer, who explained that if the director approved the setting, the school would be part of a huge prime-time show with some major stars involved. At that point, I was sworn to secrecy and only allowed to share a small amount of information with a few people, 'on a need-to-know basis,' as they say. After I had shown the director and another group of crew around the site on another occasion, it was all systems go.
It turns out they wanted to use my school for two days' worth of filming, which would work out to be a nice little earner for us. The only problem was that one of those days would be a weekday, and they needed to use the inside of the building as well as the external areas. Being a resourceful sort, as small school heads have to be, I asked if any extra money was available on top of the filming costs for us to take children on an impromptu trip, as that would free the day up for filming. Luckily, there was, so I set about writing a carefully worded letter to the parents to explain that we would be taking the children to a nearby car museum for the day and that no donations would be requested from them. The trickiest part of the letter was that we all had to stay away from the school site for the day, as the TV crew would be there from very early on to set up. I think I communicated that in the letter without giving the game away, though.
As you can imagine, this was all very exciting, and I was quite proud of myself for not letting the news get out. I needn't have bothered, though, as they were filming other locations in the village, too, including the church. Some of the local grannies had got word from the vicar, so it was all around the village.
Interestingly, I had a phone call a few weeks before the filming asking if any of my staff shared a name with the teacher who was named in the production. I guess that was to cover the statement you always see on TV shows about any similarities to those living or dead being purely coincidental. I also had to give them information about the colour of the uniform our children wore as they needed to change that for the TV show, and the school's name had to be changed, too. I must admit I was a tiny bit irked that they gave us a church school name (St. Michael's), as I was proud of our community school status.
The final hurdle we had to overcome was that on the Saturday, they needed somebody to unlock the school and stay there all day. I think it was for insurance purposes. So that was down to myself and my deputy to cover, which was actually quite interesting as we got to see how a TV show gets made and how many people are involved. I think that in total, there were about sixty people onsite, plus the actors, including catering. There were even cleaners involved to make sure the school was ready for us to open again on Monday, as they had made quite a mess in places.
Funnily enough, after going to great pains to remove our identity for the sake of the show, they kept the labels on the classroom drawers. So, when they filmed one of the scenes inside the classroom, you could clearly see the names of our children!
It was actually the last day of filming when they came to our school for the 2nd day. So, I can now say that I have taken part in an official wrap party for a BAFTA-winning show. I maintained a respectful distance from the stars, who were drinking champagne and quietly drank my one small bottle of beer, but I was there!
It was quite tricky when the show was broadcast as it was aimed at an adult audience, so we couldn't show any clips in school or encourage the children to watch. We did put a reminder in the newsletter, though, and I'm sure many of the children enjoyed our fifteen minutes of fame.
I don't think I can get in any trouble for revealing the name of the hit series now, but there is something stopping me. I think it goes back to the initial promise I made. They did come back for series two, though, which is currently being shown on the BBC, and I think that it would be 'unreasonable' if I gave it away, just in case they come back for season three.
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