It’s not just one rotten fruit, it’s the system!

David Kaplan

Bad Apples is a brilliant satire on the state of education in the UK.

Maria, played by Saoirse Ronan, is a teacher in a primary school. She has an extremely poorly behaved student, Danny, in her class, whom she is unable to influence.

The characterisations are brilliantly observed. In one scene, the school’s Headteacher tells Maria to ‘pull herself together’ and sort out Danny’s behaviour: “You know the school cannot afford support in your class – you have to do it yourself”. In another scene, Maria has put a huge amount of thought into a lesson on lyrics and music. It is the first lesson of the day and for some reason, Danny is not in class. Maybe the lesson will go well. Maria has just started the lesson when Danny walks in – he is just late to school. The look of utter disappointment on Maria’s face is clear for all to see. Chaos ensues.

Danny’s behaviour gets progressively worse and after a series of escalating incidents, Maria abducts him and imprisons him in the basement of her house.

The film highlights the pressures on teachers: to ‘perform miracles’ with classes that have too many students and without the necessary funding. Individual teachers are encouraged to go ‘above and beyond’ the norm and then promoted based on their results, as a whip to other professionals. ‘This could be you, if only you work harder.’

The child characters of Danny and his foil, Pauline, are brilliantly played by Eddie Waller and Nia Brown. Both the scriptwriter, Jess O’Kane, and director, Jonatan Etzler, were previously teachers.

On the face of it, Danny is the only ‘bad apple’ in the film: removing him from the picture is a cure-all for all the problems facing the school. The school gets its ‘best ever’ SATS results as a consequence. However, leaving the cinema theatre, you realise that it is not Danny who is the bad apple, but the whole system of results-driven, reward-based education.

• Bad Apples is on general release in cinemas around the UK