Changing Schools

Five-part series following a year in the life of four schools in Damascus, a high pressure crossroads in the Middle East.

It concentrates on some remarkable characters finding their way in a country that has never before opened ordinary life up to the cameras in this way, challenges the usual cliches of Arab life and charts the highs and lows of the school year.

Mrs Amal Hassan is the larger-than-life headteacher of Zaki Al Arsouzi Girls' School, intent on teaching her girls to stick up for themselves and 'be free'. She has a new girl at school, Dua'a, who comes from a devout Muslim family. Until now Dua'a has been educated at a conservative Islamic school, but this term she has moved to the more liberal Zaki Al-Arsouzi School. How will she get on with the big ideas of her new headteacher?

Across town at Jaramana Boys' School, Yusif is football mad. He's an Iraqi refugee who lived through the bombs of Baghdad. Now, in the relative calm of Syria, he must start to overcome his deep-seated fear of loud bangs.