If you didn’t watch last night’s opening episode in the new C5 four-part series about Gascoigne Primary School, Barking, catch up via the repeats.  If any grandstanding politician still believes that all that a teacher needs is subject knowledge, then this should sort them out. The human and logistical challenges confronted and resolved by Bob Garton and his colleagues would fell lesser mortals, and the responsive and articulate children in last night’s episode really did them proud. Compulsive viewing.

Gascoigne Primary School, as it happens, is participating in the Cambridge Primary Review Trust/York University/Educational Endowment Foundation project on dialogic teaching and social disadvantage.