25 years since ITV Schools ended.

You Bet Your Life. That followed The Big Breakfast for the first few months, but for a while anything went in that slot, including as mentioned Bewitched for many years, before the schools programmes followed at 9.30. I think it was around 1996 that schools programmes were moved to run from 9-11.30.

I seem to remember Channel 4 Schools moving to 0900-1130 for one year only, then returning to the traditional slot. I think it was slightly later in the 90s though.

I remember a repeat of Live Lunch with Mel and Sue been scheduled before Channel 4 Schools aswell.

Had completely forgotten that show. Could never make head nor tail of it. Was it really badly edited for British transmission? Or perhaps I was too young to understand what was going on.

It was a remake of a show Groucho Marx hosted in the 50s, maybe it made more sense to them who were familiar with that version.

You make a valid point. I was once discussing schools programmes with parents and we all agreed that some schools programmes stand the test of time better than others from the perspective of a learning resource. A programme from the 1980s about computers will probably be hopelessly outdated but a programme from the 1980s about the Battle of Hastings or chemical reactions could be just as usable today as when it was new - after factoring out the styling of the presenter's shirt!

State schools in England are only officially allowed to show programmes if they are up to date with the National Curriculum and sufficiently multicultural. The result of this is that state schools have disposed of the vast majority of older schools programmes they recorded over the years but some are still being used today in independent schools.

It was commonplace in the 1980s and 90s for people in Britain to record schools programmes then export the tapes to various developing countries for use in education there.

Why probably? it will be outdated! This 1984 video from Thames is a good example:


because by the standards of today that is basically a lot of faffing around with a load of chunky boxes that ties up the phone line.

A programme from 6 or 7 years ago could technically be more outdated than a programme from the 1980s because the National Curriculum has changed. Schools no longer teach ICT. They now teach computer science which is a completely different subject.

Here's an few interesting videos:

Featuring a Granada endcap "for ITV Schools" (as stated on the first page) in the later years and probably the shortest ever link between programme end and the 1 minute countdown:


Here's a rare caption error, since most of the rest of the service pretty much ran like clockwork:


One of the startup tunes before we heard The Journey for the first time (I'm assuming this is genuine and somebody hasn't just replaced the soundtrack):


And speaking of startups, the day the soundtrack went a bit deja-vu:

Interesting that pairs the 1989 ITV logo with the word "schools" as well, as that logo never appeared on the service otherwise. The blocky, multicoloured ITV was I think never actually an official logo, but it got a lot of use during the 80s, especially on Channel 4 (and Central had it in a couple of idents too). I guess after spending what I imagine must have been a lot of money making the idents they didn't want to go to the expense of making another after only 2 years (and they probably weren't too bothered about the schools service not being corporately branded either).

I do think the ITV Schools animations have stood the test of time and still look good today though, especially compared to a lot of other 80s CGI.

Much of Central's CGI still looks good today, since I think we said in the other thread last time Schools on 4 came up, Central were fairly unique in using a rainbow ITV logo like that. Its nice to know it lasted until June 1993 in one form or another.

Pity what followed in September 1993 when Channel 4 took over the running and branding of the service wasn't as nice or pretty. It was functional but I suppose anything would have had a hell of a job competing with the previous look visually.