Teresa Watkins interview

22 October 2015

Following on from this year’s highest-rated single documentary, The Secret Life of Four Year Olds is now back as a full series on Channel 4 – this time using fixed-rig cameras to explore the secret life of five and six year-olds, in addition to a new group of four year-olds, and the return of many of the original children who come together to put of a Nativity play as a Christmas Special.

As before, we follow a group of children meeting for the first time in fully rigged play centre and get a window onto their secret world including the relationships formed and all their social interaction. Seeing separate groups of 4, 5 and 6 year olds up close will provide insight into the huge development milestones that children reach between the ages of 4-6.

The series will be shot in a single location, adapted for each age group, under the watchful eyes of three scientists, Professor Paul Howard-Jones (Educational Neuroscientist, Bristol University), Dr Sam Wass (Developmental Psychologist, MCR Cognition & Brain Unit, Cambridge) Dr Elizabeth Kilbey, (Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Oxleas NHS Trust).

Our scientists are present throughout and filmed in situ as they observe and comment on the development of key social skills, such as emotional regulation, empathy and the emergence of a moral compass, in what we hope will be a fascinating new series:

Explain a bit about The Secret Life of 4/5/6 Year Olds – what’s the concept behind the series?

Cathy Rogers, the series’ co-creator, and I were fascinated by 4 year olds. We found them amazingly smart, funny and magical in their thinking.

At four years old children have the basics of language and all the myriad skills they’ve learned in their years at home and they are about to take a giant leap into the more regimented and social world of school. This sets them on the threshold of a whole new world. But to what degree are their futures already mapped out? We liked the way that Child Development specialists use simple observation - alongside scientific tests - as a key tool for studying children of this age.

We were also huge fans of Etre and Avoir – a documentary film set in a rural French primary school. We loved its simplicity and, as one reviewer put it, ‘the eternal mystery of the children’s faces and the future ghosts of the adults they will become.’

We wanted The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds to capture that same mystery, those same ghosts, and in 2012 we found a model for our series in a nursery attached to Stamford University, called The Bing. Bing is a state of the art nursery attended by the children of all the professors at Stamford, and attached to it are a series of ‘games’ rooms, set up with 2-way mirrors so that the children’s every move can be studied and observed by scientists. This really excited us and the basic idea for the series was born.  

How do you think the new series will grow from the Secret Life of 4 Year Olds pilot earlier this year?

The key difference this time round is that we’re not just working with one age group. We have cast a brand new group of 4 year olds, but also a group of 5 year olds and 6 year olds, as well as a reunion show with the original children – now 6 – who will put on a Nativity show as a Christmas Special. This range gives us an extraordinary window on this period of intense development as children move from the relative safety of their home to the pro-social world of school. You see enormous differences between the different age groups – everything from their language skills to their motor skills to the way they make friends and empathise with their fellow playmates. Even the way they insult each other changes exponentially. It takes your breath away when you consider the developmental leaps these children are expected to take in two small years – things that we take for granted like learning to remember instructions, to say sorry, and sit still and listen. These things are really challenging for a 4YO. Three years before they were learning to walk. Now we’re asking them to communicate with their peers. And by 6 we expect them to have mastered all these basic rules.

Each episode focuses on an individual year group but across the series as a whole, viewers will get an extraordinary birds’ eye view of this crucial stage of development in a child’s life.

But with filming older children came new challenges, and we had to adapt the way we shot the series.

What was the set-up, in terms of filming? Is it a mixture of fixed rig, traditional camera crew and self-filmed?

In the pilot we had 3 camera operators and the 4 year olds soon forgot about them and got on with their day. When we returned to film with them six months later they were noticeably more self-conscious. We knew this would be true of our 6 year olds– after all, it’s a key part of their development at this age that they are more self-aware, and with awareness comes self-consciousness.

So we decided that the best way to capture the action and all the overheard conversations and exchanges that provided the heartbeat of the pilot without interrupting the flow of the children’s play would be to use remotely operated cameras – the documentary rig. During the summer holidays we took over an Infants school in South London and rigged the inside play space with 15 cameras and the outside playground with 12 cameras, together with mini-cams in the Wendy House; we also set up an interview room in which the children were filmed answering direct questions down the lens; and we had self-shooters to capture the explorations of the children off-rig – for example in a lovely orchard up above the school where they could sit in the long grass or pick apples and plums from the trees.

With docs like 24 Hours in A&E and Educating Yorkshire, we’ve had very intimate, fly-on-the-wall access in the past. How do you think this series uses the fixed-rig to the best of its capability?

The first thing was to make sure all the cameras were down at the children’s eye level. To really capture the children’s Secret World we needed to be in and amongst them, not peering down at them from above. We moved the camera height each week to respond to the new age group coming to the school. Once the cameras were in place, the challenges for the gallery team of camera operators and directors were enormous. These children have come to play. And as anyone who has ever watched children playing knows only too well children barely sit still for two seconds. I don’t think there’s another rig in which the subjects are so young and move around so much. It required an extraordinary level of concentration.

As our Series Director, Nic Brown, put it, these children seem to live their lives in fast forward…This meant that no sooner had you lined up and framed a shot than the children would move on to the next thing. The beauty of the camerawork lies in the close-ups of the children’s expressions, their faces breaking into a smile, their eyes brimming with tears – these shots were the hardest to get. But by tuning into each of the children and really listening to them, as well as looking at the monitors the Gallery team began to predict the way the children moved around the space and the coverage got better and better.

They joy of the fixed rig is the intimacy of the footage it captures, and for us the key to this was the sound. Each of the children is wired up with a microphone and they remain on this same mic throughout their time with us. This means we can tune into every child at any time. And so can the scientists. We capture every word uttered, whispered or gasped – nothing passes undetected. This is what gives us such a privileged and unparalleled window onto their secret world including the unadulterated and innocent humour that this allows us to capture.

How and why did you choose the children involved?

As soon as the series was commissioned we conducted a nationwide search via the C4 website, sending fliers out to c.3500 nurseries, schools and activity centres. We also street-cast, and we used social media, everything from Facebook to Mumsnet.

As Series Producer, Emily Lawson, describes, ‘There followed a lengthy process to find our children which included group events, mini interviews, conversations with schools and nurseries, and home visits. As part of our ongoing duty of care to the children we sought – in partnership with a respected Child Psychologist – children and families who would benefit from the experience.

Decisions were very hard to make. All children are, by their very nature, interesting and compelling to observe as they interact with one another. We were looking for a balanced and diverse cast, representing a broad range of personalities, much as you would find in classrooms up and down the land.’

Is this a concept that you would consider with older children?

Yes, but every age you choose needs a strong scientific rationale behind it. We focus on 4 to 6 year olds in the current series because this is a pivotal age in a child’s development. The older children get the more they self-censor. But, given the right setting and activities, how fascinating it would be to observe The Secret Life of 9 Year Olds or The Secret Life of Teenagers. One classroom assistant suggested that we should turn the tables and make The Secret Life of Teachers. As long as there’s no talk of The Secret Life of TV Producers…

You’re dealing with very young children, who don’t necessarily make the best decisions all the time. Did you have any misgivings about showing footage that may reflect badly on the children?

If a child gets very upset, or has real difficulty sharing, or wants to get their own way you have to be convinced that these scenes are pertinent to the story of the week. There are many reasons why children get upset and we are very careful only to show tricky behaviour in context and with explanatory comments from our observing scientists so that it is never gratuitous and to avoid any child being ‘labelled’ unjustly for certain behaviour.

That said, we all have a bit of the devil in us and any parent knows their child isn’t angelic all the time. A really important aspect of the programme is showing the realities of life in the playground – it can be brutal out there - and there’s no shame in feeling things strongly. Let’s be clear, we’re talking universal emotions here. Which of us hasn’t experienced jealous rage, rejection, or the sting of criticism? These are not the preserve of children and its amazing how recognisable these emotions are to us when they are laid bare, uncensored and uncomplicated by layers of politeness and so-called manners.

Was there a complicated consent process?

Not so much complicated as extraordinarily in-depth and thorough. It had to be. There is nothing more precious to people than their children and our duty of care to our contributors and their parents cannot be overestimated. The cornerstone of our consent process is that parents are fully informed and that the consent given on behalf of their child is ongoing. At every stage of production – from the auditions to the edit - we ensure that parents are familiar and comfortable with all elements of the programme.

First our prospective parents are provided with a set of Frequently Asked Questions. These range from how many pairs of trousers to bring on the day to how to talk about the filming to your child. We also provide parents with advice on Social Media. And we talk them through potential Worst Case Scenarios – what to do if their child is not enjoying the process or if their child has an accident. Only when this is all fully understood, and once the families have been visited by a C4 approved and independent psychologist who sanctions their decision to take part, do we ask parents to sign a release form.

As for the children themselves, clearly their age mitigates against their fully informed consent. But we do ask for their on-going ‘assent’. In other words, we explain the process of filming to the children in age-appropriate language and we check they are happy to take part before and during filming. We do this as we are mic-ing the children up ready for the day’s shoot. Furthermore, we make sure they feel that they can, at any time, come and tell us if they are unhappy or concerned about anything. We also ask parents to be alert to any signs of distress in their children, and we speak to parents every evening to check up on this.

Parents are invited to attend the first day of filming with their child, and to watch the unfolding action in a nearby Parents’ Room on monitors. Many parents chose to stay for the entire week. Our Senior Casting Producers, Karen Browne and Amy Willets, were with them at all times to answer and questions, and myself or Emily, the Series Producer, made frequent visits to report on the unfolding action. Every evening, the parents were called by Karen or Amy to be updated on their child’s day.

This ensures there are few surprises during the edit. We hold one to one viewings with the parents of children that are heavily featured and we hold group viewings, or send password protected links, for the parents of children less heavily featured in which they can ask questions, and comment on whether – in their opinion - the portrayal of their child is accurate and fair.

Our parents have to be assured that we are taking the best care and doing things in the best interests of their children at all times. We want this to be an experience that they cherish and one that their children will look back on with affection.

So the levels of care had quite a few checks and balances in place?

We had to offer an impeccable level of care from top to bottom. All production staff in close contact with the children are given enhanced DBS checks. In addition we carried out standard DBS checks on all RDF staff including camera crew and offline editors (this included List 99 checks). The team of people taking care of the children included our highly trained teachers and teaching assistants as well as chaperones, who looked after the children at lunchtime and took them to the toilet, and who were there to ensure that we kept to time and that the children were happy and well looked after.

Behind the scenes, our team of scientists montiored the entire process.

Who had the ultimate responsibility for the children on a day to day basis during filming?

Immediate responsibility for the children’s well-being lay with our teachers, just as it would in a general nursery, classroom or play centre.

Were you particularly surprised by anything you filmed during the series, or was it largely as you’d expected?

We were constantly surprised, constantly amazed, constantly delighted.

Every day we were struck by their courage, their willingness to try new things, their resilience in the face of slings and arrows – children don’t mince their words! – their ingenuity, their sense of mischief, their ability to express their emotions, their constant striving to find creative solutions, to make up insults – (stand out name-calling included You muggle-headed Mugwump….You Biminal Bat or my personal favourite, My dear old fish, go and boil your head!)

As well as observing the funny things children do, how does this series delve deeper into the scientific developmental elements?

Our science team are the cornerstone of the whole project and they are fully embedded in the production process. We have worked with two of the scientists, Professor Paul Howard Jones (Educational Neuroscientist, Bristol University) and Dr Sam Wass (Developmental Psychologist, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University) since the original Proof of Concept. This time they were joined by Consultant Psychologist, Elizabeth Kilbey.

With their help we draw up a list of the key developmental milestones we were interested in observing, and they help us design appropriate science ‘tasks’. So, for example, a group of 4 year olds are tasked by the teacher to stay on their seats while she leaves the room for a short time. They are told that if they can all remain seated there will be a reward for the whole group. If one of them gets up there will be no reward. This is hugely challenging for a group of 4 year olds who are only just beginning to recognise the significance of the group as a whole versus themselves as individuals within it. Added to this, their working memories – one of three key executive functions – are only just forming at this age. They literally have trouble keeping instructions in their head for long. It’s a really interesting task. And the way it plays out had us all on the edge of our seats. Who knew the children would invoke the moral authority of the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas?! Watch the first episode of the series to find out more.

What are the key areas of development that you are looking in to?

The key developmental milestones we were interested in included

• Pro-social skills – making friends, sharing, listening
• Emotional Regulation – the ability to control your emotions - something many adults still struggle with this in their everyday lives!
• Theory of Mind – or Empathy – in other words, being able to understand that other people have thoughts, feelings and perceptions can be different to one’s own
• Growth of Gender awareness
• Morality – it’s during this age that children begin to develop a strong moral compass and a sense of right and wrong. Any parent will tell you that It’s not fair is a familiar cry, at home and in the playground.
• We were also interested in the children’s cognitive and physical motor skills, as well as their emerging personalities.

You’re supported by the Wellcome Trust. What was their involvement?

I said the scientists were ‘embedded’ in the process. What I mean by this is that our scientists were there day in, day out, observing the children on monitors, and listening in to the children’s individual microphones. This gave them unparalleled access to the children’s behaviour – which in turn gave them great insight into their developing friendships, their styles of play, their mood swings and motivations so they could comment with authority on individual scenes and exchanges.

Like us, the Wellcome Trust were intrigued and excited by seeing real Scientists in action, observing children’s play as they would do out in the field. They encouraged us to film this aspect of the production and to feature the scientists in the process of observing, as well as in master interviews at the end of the day

Some of my favourite moments are when our scientists disagree. Our scientists come from different fields– Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology, Clinical Psychology. Science is a discipline with many faces, and this way of filming allowed us to celebrate their differences as well as their shared body of knowledge.

We’re very grateful that the Wellcome Trust saw this series as a groundbreaking form of Science Entertainment and one they wanted to support by means of a Co-Production Award.