Amanda Burton joins BBC’s Waterloo Road
Original Silent Witness star Amanda Burton returns to BBC One to take a lead role in the popular drama series Waterloo Road.
Amanda joins the cast of Waterloo Road as Head Teacher Karen Fisher, and speaking about her new role she says: “I’m very excited to join Waterloo Road which is such a well-known and well-loved series. I can’t wait to get started on the programme and am very much looking forward to my first day on set with the cast and crew.”
Amanda begins filming on location in Rochdale in November and will make her first appearance in the drama next year.
Fans of Waterloo Road will be able to catch up with the goings on in the troubled comprehensive much sooner however, when the new series, starring reigning Strictly Come Dancing Champion Tom Chambers, returns to BBC One on Wednesday 28 October.
Head of Independent Drama for BBC Scotland, Anne Mensah, says: “Amanda is an actress of exceptional quality and enormous popularity with the audience. We are absolutely delighted to be welcoming her to Waterloo Road. We have a fantastic cast and brilliant new stories to tell as the programme continues to go from strength to strength.”
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Tonight’s (4th Oct ‘09) Waterloo road was ridiculous and completely unrealistic.I am trained in Child Protection and used to work with Children and Families, even in my position – Social Services – it was always left to police to investigate allegations of sexual assault.
A pupil alleging a sexual assault against another pupil would have the right to report the incident to the police.It is not up to teachers to decide whether or not they think the police should be involved – although I know this does happen – and it certainly is not the teachers’responsibility to question the alleged perpetrator.Any pupil accused of a sexual assault would be interviewed by trained police officers, with – if the youngster is under 17 – an ‘appropriate adult’ (e.g a parent or other approved person)and, if requested a lawyer, present. The reason for this is precisely because teachers are not qualified or trained for this and to avoid the sort of situation we saw on tonight’s programme where a teacher or headteacher is obviously biased and prejudiced against one of the pupils concerned.Many teachers have the attitude that a child is not telling the truth, or might try to get a child to reveal details they do not feel comfortable disclosing and this can lead to ‘putting words in the child’s mouth’ which can actually harm a case.a
The pupil making the allegation would also have the right to have a parent present.
What would certainly not be appropriate would be for a teacher to tell other pupils in the school about an alleged assault and/or the outcome of this until it had been investigated by the relevant authoritis.
any allegations of sexual – or other -assault against one pupil by another would come under Child Protection Policy of the school and by law any abuse of this nature would need to be investihated by trained Child Protection (Police) Officers.
It is very common for the BBC to make programmes with incorrect facts,but when it involves such a serious subject – which actually happens more than one might imagine in real life – it is important for youngsters watching to see the characters in the programme getting the right support and being believed, and to know that it wouldn’t be up to an authoritarian adult they may fer or dislike to judge the situation.
On a less serious note, I had a bit of a laugh when the French teacher was explaining about the different accents in written French (many of which are actually not bothered with now!) Ironiclly, she then went on to say a sentence containing the word ‘tres…’['very'] but pronounced it – as many english people mistakenly do – ‘tray’, thus giving it an acute accent,rather than ‘treh’ with the grave accent it actually has! That particular character has a very poor grasp of French, and I don’t know whether this is the actor’s fault or intentionally abysmal.
Can’t the BBC find a single actor who can actually speak French, or is the intention really to show the appalling level of languages tuition in the state school system?!