The Higher Mortals

The Higher Mortals is a film produced by the Children's Film Unit in 1993, directed by Colin Finbow and distributed by Channel Four Films. It was filmed in south Suffolk and north Essex, and received its sole TV transmission on Channel 4 on 25 September 1994, also being shown at the 1994 Edinburgh International Film Festival. It deals with the problems suffered by many smaller girls' boarding schools during the early 1990s recession, and makes use of metaphor and analogy in its critique of the John Major government of the day. It notably features early appearances by the now prominent actresses Jemima Rooper and Clemency Burton-Hill.

Crabbe College is a lesser-known girls' boarding school (described at one point as "a little family school founded in the 1950s by a woman who was potty about poetry") which (like a considerable number of real schools of that ilk at the time, many of which closed) is suffering serious financial problems following the recession. The headmistress, Miss Thorogood (played by Susannah York) announces that some girls "and some boys" from deprived inner city areas will be coming to the school, as part of a plan by the government to help struggling private schools while simultaneously giving it justification for its cutbacks of social services in deprived areas. "The Higher Mortals", while also alluding to the general assumed social position of those already at the school, specifically refers to a secret society founded by some of the girls, based around social elitism and a particular veneration of literature.

The inner-city children - four boys, Jason, Wayne, Clint, and Ryan, and one girl, Hayley (whose mother had committed suicide) arrive at the school and are, for the most part, viewed with hostility and a general lack of understanding. It is implied that the boys are at the school due to an error in social services, with Miss Thorogood commenting that she is not even sure they have the same inner-city children they were intended to have. There is some hostility towards one of the boys, Ryan, on the grounds that he is black, with one teacher (the reactionary Mr Bowles, played by Richard Kane) describing him as a "black bastard". There is an incident of joyriding, and it is revealed that at least one of the boys cannot read. A mood of uncertainty seems to run through the school as the summer term goes on, and it is made clear that the school's financial situation is more serious than it is willing to make public.