Students, parents and teachers are featured in a new BBC documentary which looks at the controversial Athena Learning Trust and its tough record on discipline at schools in Cornwall and Devon.

For years, a number of Cornish schools have been at the centre of concern around the trust’s approach to teaching an discipline, now the BBC’s Panorama has dedicated a whole programme to Athena.

Britain’s Strictest Schools is screened at 8pm tonight (Monday, August 3) on BBC One and is available on iPlayer.

The programme is described as “the story of the schools that went too far” and “education built on tough discipline”.

Parents, councillors and MPs in Cornwall have all previously spoken out about Athena, which is compared to a “dictatorship” and described as “authoritarian, dystopian, abusive and cruel” on Panorama.

Following growing media reports, public meetings and Cornwall Council agreeing to set up an advisory group to advise the Secretary of State for Education, the Athena trust announced in July that it will disband. Its CEO Ben Parnell announced his resignation in May.

Panorama journalist Richard Bilton said the programme makers expected to speak to a few people in Camborne but were filming for more than five hours, with many pupils and parents featuring in the half-hour documentary.

The programme explains that punctuality is strictly enforced and uniform is inspected every day “and must be perfect”. Eyes have to be on the teacher when they’re talking, while the students have to use work books in silence and repeat catchphrases such as “3 2 1 focus” as much as 50 times a day.

One pupil, Bethany, has just finished her GCSEs at Camborne, while her younger brother Felix has been at the school for a year. In tears, she said she felt “trapped”, while her emotional father Ben added: “Driving them both to school, you have to watch what you say because if you mention the wrong thing it sets off all the tears and all the stress and all the worry again.”

Robin Johnson, a former teacher at Camborne, told Panorama: “Behaviour was kind of quashed. Those young people that are anxious every single day about forgetting their book or forgetting their tie have a joyless education now.”

Camborne is one of six secondary schools run by the Athena Learning Trust with around 6,500 pupils following the same strict rules. The programme points out that Athena is “pretty successful” with Ofsted reports for its schools mostly ‘good’ and exam results generally improving.

Launceston College was the first school to be taken over by the trust in 2022. Bryan Maywood, a former teacher at the school, told Panorama more discipline was definitely needed when the trust took over.

“It did need something new – it needed an impetus, something to change. My initial thoughts were that I was really pleased that we were going to be moving into a new way of learning.”

Estelle Pears, another former teacher, agreed: “When it first came, it seemed really reasonable. They said all the right things – we all want discipline. There is no one who would disagree with students needing to know where a parameter is and where the rules and regulations are.”

Results have improved since Athena took over – the number of pupils getting good maths and English GCSEs has gone up from 50% to 55%, but the teachers interviewed said the discipline went too far.

Ms Pears said: “There is discipline and then there is being oppressed. It sounds dramatic but that’s what it became. If you’re frightened of moving a pencil on a desk because you will get a sanction, if your eyes happen to flick out of the window for two minutes and you get a sanction – that’s beyond discipline.”

Teachers said they had to uphold the rules by the trust and even music lessons had to be quiet.

Ieuan Horgan, a former music teacher at Launceston, said: “Some of the teachers have been there 20-plus years, have taught children of children, and none of them needed this really brutal, authoritarian approach to achieve things in life.”

Mr Maywood added that it felt like teaching under a dictatorship “with lots of people who subscribed to it doing the errands of the most powerful in that organisation”.

A former head girl at Launceston said teachers wanted pupils to be silent and not express an opinion. “It’s so stressful – I came home crying every night after school.”

The trust didn’t want to appear on the programme but said its schools are committed to “calm, safe and purposeful” learning environments and that “teaching approaches are evidence-informed” and “do not replace or limit creativity”.

It said “consistent classroom routines” and “structured high quality teaching” are key to supporting all students.

All the schools have a two-strike policy – a warning for one breach and an in-school detention for the second, which Athena calls “reflection”. Pupils at Launceston get put in “reflection” about 1,000 times a month, where they have to work in silence, with some having to wear noise-cancelling headphones.

If they break the rules in “reflection”, students can be suspended. The suspension rate at Launceston is three times higher than the average for England, while at Camborne it’s been around five times higher.

James Ball, Independent councillor at Cornwall Council, who has been vocal in his criticism of the Athena trust has backed concerned parents in Camborne. “It’s upsetting because you want a school to do well. You want students to come here and for it to be the best time of their life.”

He told Panorama that the trust had told him that “teaching white underprivileged people near the coast is the hardest group of young people to teach – that is why we’re putting in the draconian rules to pull the young people into line”.

Cllr Ball said he asked for statistics from the trust to back up what he was told and he’s never received them.

The programme heard from a number of parents that children with special educational needs have been particularly affected by Athena’s rules on discipline. Tom Bennett, the Government’s adviser on behaviour behaviour in schools in England, argues in the documentary that such pupils need a “calm, safe, dignified environment”.

He didn’t comment on specific Athena schools, but said there was a benefit to schools having such a high level of strictness as the pupils get into the habit of sticking to the rules quicker.

Panorama reports that in the past three years 500 children have left Athena secondary schools to be educated at home.

In a statement, Athena told Panorama it has “listened carefully” and recognises the clear need for change and is working with the Department for Education (DfE) to identify alternative trusts which could run its schools.

The DfE is quoted as saying the allegations about Athena are “serious and concerning” and that it is “taking robust action to make sure the trust improves” ahead of its schools transferring to another trust or trusts. Athena is now subject to “enhanced monitoring” to make sure its approach to pupil behaviour is “reasonable and proportionate”.

The Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, has called on the DfE to launch a full investigation into the wider issues raised by his Launceston constituents on Athena Learning Trust, following what he described as “deeply worrying” testimony from pupils, parents and former staff in the BBC documentary.