Channel 4 celebrates the return of Educating Yorkshire with a schoolchildren-led “takeover”

“What would we do for an advert?” asks one of the school children in the trailer for Channel 4’s upcoming reboot of Educating Yorkshire, the hit TV show that first aired a decade ago. But the children already knew what they’d do for an advert, because they’re the masterminds behind the brand new, action-packed, choreographed and soundtracked trailer, teaming up with director Dougal Wilson (the man behind 2024’s Paddington In Peru and several John Lewis Christmas adverts, plus those great Channel 4 idents). Celebrating youth and education with a twist, the 3 minute and 20 seconds ad evokes School Of Rock through Alfonoso Cuarón’s famous one-take epics – somehow it manages to jam-pack the sneak-peek of the upcoming show with the hallmarks of school education: music, dance, science, and art – even the trusty dinner ladies get a moment to shine.

The campaign was developed through a series of 12 workshops involving over 400 Yorkshire students from Thornhill Community Academy, Lawnswood School, and Dixons Unity Academy. Pupils took on roles from script writers and actors to photographers, voiceover artists, producers and even media buyers, working alongside 4creative, Blink Productions, OMD UK, and Channel 4’s 4Studio and 4Schools programmes. “I loved working with the kids in all the different parts of the project,” says Dougal Wilson. “Rehearsing and recording with the school band, creating a dance routine, workshopping their brilliant performances, designing our ‘special effects’, stunts and ‘big finale’.”

“The media narrative surrounding today’s kids is overwhelmingly bleak, so we felt an urgency to show the country they’re actually brilliant, funny and wildly creative,” says David Wigglesworth, an executive creative director at 4creative. “The end result is everything we hoped for, full of joy, honesty and a bit of beautiful chaos.” Indeed, the advert fights against current conversations around a “doomed” generation alpha – with rising statistics of unmonitored internet access, as well as issues such as young boys failing in school, an issue that MPs have been called in to investigate. However, just like the original show, the new advert for Educating Yorkshire injects creativity and life into every second of its runtime, becoming a rollicking music video as well as an insight to the lawless imaginations of school children.

The youth takeover will extend to social media as the pupils temporarily run the Channel 4 TikTok, Instagram and Threads accounts, extending into tongue-in-cheek pupil voiceovers replacing Channel 4’s usual on-air announcements during the campaign period. “Educating Yorkshire is a commission that’s incredibly close to our hearts at Channel 4, and we’re proud to bring it back with a campaign as meaningful as the series itself,” says Miketta Lane, a director at 4creative. “By placing real students at the heart of the process, we’re not only championing unheard voices, we’re empowering them. This is representation, collaboration, and a celebration of the next generation of talent. This is public service broadcasting at its best.” Putting pupils at the centre of the campaign reminds viewers that young people in the UK deserve to be celebrated. Thanks to 4creative and the creativity of such a large scale collaboration, this ad has landed at the right time to showcase the challenges that young people face.

The new series of Educating Yorkshire will air later this month.