It’s the end of term at last. Teachers like me have every right to stick a video on, for their last lessons. A few decades ago, that meant wheeling in the school telly and video, and showing the kids something on tape. My teachers would have a little collection of cassettes for this purpose. Nowadays, with everything online, there’s no need for such a collection. Or is there?

The BBC is filling iPlayer with trendy transient stuff and is failing to make core educational stuff available

You’d have thought there were lots of good educational documentaries on BBC iPlayer. But in my field, religion, there aren’t. The BBC is filling iPlayer with trendy transient stuff and is failing to make core educational stuff available.

There is no general history of Christianity. Why not keep Diarmaid MacCulloch’s fairly recent series, A History of Christianity, available?

Searching ‘Christianity’ gives you a Louis Theroux documentary, a Storyville documentary about an evangelical cult, the sitcom Rev (excellent but not very relevant) and not much else.

‘Jesus’ gets you another cult documentary, an episode of Songs of Praise, not much else.

‘Bible’ gets you an episode of The Repair Shop, on which an old Bible is restored, and for some reason an episode of QI, nothing else.

‘Reformation’ gets you Lucy Worsley dressing up and exposing her big fibs, nothing else.

‘Luther’ supplies a cop show and some stuff about the civil rights leader.

‘Church’ yields a bit of old Betjeman, ‘Catholic’ something on Northern Ireland and a reality show about pilgrimage.

‘Judaism’ gives you nothing, but ‘Jews’ gives you a couple of documentaries.

‘Islam’ gives you a few documentaries about extremism.

‘Mohammed’ gives you something about Al-Fayed: not appropriate.

I ended up showing my students some of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s series about Rome, which was okay, but surely there should a bit more on the history of Christianity.

The BBC doubtless takes its ‘education’ remit very seriously and works very hear to reach new audiences in fresh ways and so on, but why is it neglecting the basics?