Channel 4′s Educating Essex (Thursday) is the best of the reality/fly on the wall genre by a mile. Set in a Harlow secondary school, Passmores Academy, it follows staff and students through a series of typical days. The school has an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating and is a member of the Schools Co-operative Society.

You don’t envy the jobs of Mr Goddard, the head teacher and man at war with his tank top or Mr Drew, the deputy head with responsibility for standards. Mr Drew may be, in the opinion of some, a bit of a dork, but his tolerance levels for a job that amounts to wading knee deep through shit, are remarkable.

The first episode shows the senior management team jumping on each other like a bunch of Year 8′s and illustrates perfectly the negative impact of school uniform which Mr Drew, who unfortunately walks like a penguin, spends much of his time trying to enforce this deeply tragic British affliction (but don’t get me started).

Last night’s second shows them dealing rather brilliantly with two bullying issues, one some pretty par-for-the-course lads squabbling over girlfriends and one a hideous episode between some far from sisterly teenage girls. Jealosy at the root of both situations I might add. The dynamic duo, who work in a manifestly inadequate building drowning under what looks like 20 years of unsorted paper, take it all in their stride. They keep the solutions within the school, don’t take the easy route of exclusion and own the problem, refusing to give up on their charges. It always surprised me that any teacher would claim that there is no bullying in their school. Some do; they are both knaves (for denying the truth) and fools (for failing to spot it).

Educating Essex captures the essence of the secondary school as a place to be survived. And while any TV documentary will necessarily focus its edit on conflict and strangeness, it still shows enough of the (not much changed) reality that is school for most teenagers. It is also very very funny – some teenagers do such blindingly daft things – had they thought it through? Not a chance.

Catch up with Educating Essex on 4OD.