Educating Yorkshire Headteacher’s Girlfriend Reveals Surprising Truth Behind Their 28-Year Age Gap Romance
You ever tune into a reality TV show and wonder, “Wow, am I watching real life, or just an especially awkward school reunion?” Well, dust off your school blazers—we’re once again getting a peek behind the slightly-scuffed gates of Thornhill Community Academy, thanks to the return of Educating Yorkshire on Channel 4 . Remember when Mr. Burton helped Musharaf Asghar conquer his stammer with a trick straight out of The King’s Speech? I still get chills (the good kind, promise) thinking about that moment—honestly, if the Oscars did categories for ‘Most Life-Altering Secondary School Scene,’ Mushy would have taken home a trophy the size of Yorkshire itself .
Time passes in the school corridors, but the drama never really graduates, does it? Mushy’s thriving, Mr. Burton’s now at the helm, and Mr. Mitchell—once the glue (and possibly the caffeine) holding the staffroom together—has entered the TikTok era, and, spoiler alert, it involves a 28-year age gap and more sass than a whole geography department . Is love ageless, or do TikTok algorithms know something we don’t about romance after 50? Grab your metaphorical dinner tray and let’s dive in, because this season, the alumni tales are juicier than cafeteria lasagna and—oops—there might be some gossip that didn’t even make it into assembly .
Educating Yorkshire has made a return to the TV screen as Channel 4 is once again showing what goes on inside the Dewsbury school of Thornhill Community Academy.
The show was one of the highlights of 2013, with the moment where Mr Burton helps a student with a stammer, Musharaf Asghar, find his voice thanks to a trick he picked up from the film The King’s Speech an absolute TV triumph.
In case you’re wondering what’s happened to Musharaf, you’ll be pleased to know he’s doing pretty well these days, while Mr Burton is now the headteacher at Thornhill, replacing Mr Mitchell.
Speaking of Mr Mitchell, a couple of years after Educating Yorkshire he moved to Co-op Academy Leeds and then onto Astrea Academy Netherwood.
Since he’s left Thornhill he’s not back for series two of Educating Yorkshire and these days you’re more likely to see him in TikTok videos made by his girlfriend, Abi McMahon, who is 28 years his junior.
Jonny Mitchell (centre) was the headteacher during the first series of Educating Yorkshire (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
She’s 25, he’s 53 and the couple have addressed their age gap along with some of the main questions they get asked.
Responding to questions about whether she had been a student at one of the schools Mitchell taught at, Abi said: “Most definitely not! And I also didn’t work at one of his schools either.
“I went to a school in Nottingham as that’s where I’m originally from.”
She also said he’d just recently left his job in Netherwood ‘to embark on a new exciting journey’.
Speaking on their views about an age-gap relationship, Abi said that ‘love has no limits’ while Mr Mitchell, first name Jonny, said ‘you either click or you don’t and it doesn’t really make a massive difference how old that person is’.
Abi said there was a stigma around age difference relationships where ‘if you’re with someone older it’s instantly for money’, with her partner saying that wasn’t the case for them as he said ‘if she’s in it for the money she’s picked the wrong guy’.
They did talk about noticing some differences due to their age gap, as Mitchell said he’d sometimes reference things which happened in the 80s or 90s which Abi wouldn’t know about.
He also said she was ‘from a generation that craves instant gratification and I’m from a generation that doesn’t’ which he noticed at times.
“Within the relationship I feel like it’s just not obvious, it’s not something that plays on my mind 24/7,” Abi said.
“Because Jonny’s older and I’m younger people seem to assume that I have more energy than Jonny but it is the other way round.”
He joked that she was ‘like a three-toed sloth’, and she said she may be 25 but feels ‘at least 50’.
One teacher who is definitely not coming back to Educating Yorkshire is Mr Giffin, who was banned from teaching in 2015 after a panel found he’d had sex with a pupil when she was over 18 years old after starting a relationship with her at the Year 13 summer ball.
New episodes of Educating Yorkshire are available to watch on Sundays on Channel 4 at 8pm.
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