Educating Yorkshire headteacher Jonny Mitchell has revealed he’s in a relationship with a woman, 27 years his junior.
Mr Mitchell was the headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury when he appeared on the award-winning Channel 4 show, Educating Yorkshire more than a decade ago.
At the time he lived with his with Lisa and their three their three daughters, Ella, Lydia and Ce, and became an unlikely heartthrob.
Now it appears he is no longer in his marriage and has moved on with a 25-year-old woman called Abs who has made videoes about their relationship on TikTok.
Using the social media handle, abs_mxo, the Nottingham based blogger took to the app where she said she is ‘past the point of caring’ what anyone thinks about her age-gap relationship.
‘I think I’ve gone past the point of caring what people think. Life’s too short! Easier said than done but don’t worry about anyone’s opinion / judgement,’ she said.
She added the nicknames she calls him by including ‘Mr J’, ‘the boss’ and ‘old fart’.
Abby, who regularly posts lifestyle blogs on the app, insisted was not one of Jonny’s students. She insisted told viewers that she and her boyfriend ‘both work in a professional job’.
Commenting on one of her videos, one viewer asked if she was a student at one of Jonny’s school, to which she explained she had gone to school in Nottingham.
A headteacher who appearance in the documentary series Educating Yorkshire, appears to have left his wife and three children and is now dating a woman 27 years his junior (Jonny Mitchell pictured with his girlfriend, Abs, 25)
Jonny Mitchel, who was the headteacher at Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury, appeared on the award-winning Channel 4 show, Educating Yorkshire more than a decade ago (pictured in 2014)
‘We have numerous things in common and we have such a laugh. I think people assume because it’s an age gap you’re two completely different people but it doesn’t work like that,’ she told one viewer who asked what the two had in common,’ she said.
The couple, who ‘don’t care what people think’, maintain that they have supported each other ‘through thick and thin’.
‘We’re both extremely happy,’ she said.
Despite there being a whopping 27-years between them, the blogger claimed her parents are ‘completely fine’ with the relationship.
On TikTok, Abby has shared numerous videos of the two cosied up together. In one clip, quoting a Sam Smith song, Abby wrote:’ ‘They say we shouldn’t date out of our age range. But don’t let them ruin out beautiful rhythm.’
As of 2014, the headteacher was still living with his wife and three children in Pontefract.
Several in the comments offered their praise for their relationship, sharing details of their own age-gap romances.
One wrote: ‘As a fellow girl in a 27 year age gap, it makes me smile seeing you both happy and not bothered about other people’s opinions.’
Another said: ‘As someone in a relationship with a 29 year age difference it fills my heart with joy seeing how happy you both are.’
Now, it appears the 52-year-old Yorkshireman is dating a 25-year-old woman after his girlfriend, Abs, shared a series of videos of the pair together on TikTok
Using the social media handle, abs_mxo, the Nottingham based blogger took to the app where she said she is ‘past the point of caring’ what anyone thinks about her age-gap relationship
The teacher, who was considered a ‘heartthrob’ when the show first aired, previously lived with his wife Lisa, and their three daughters, Ella, Lydia and Celia, but is seemingly no longer married
A third penned: ‘Older men are the goat. Guys your own age are an ick. IMO and experience.’
‘Age means nothing as long as you both love each other everything else doesn’t matter,’ another mused.
Jonny stole the nation’s hearts when he appeared in the eight-part documentary in 2013.
The show first broadcast more than a decade ago and was based on the same format as the BAFTA Award winning series, Educating Essex, which came out in 2011.
The series followed pupils and staff at Thornhill Community Academy, a secondary school in Yorkshire, receiving rave reviews across the board and scoring fans across the world.
Mr Mitchell was loved by viewers as he was students. Two years after the show ended in 2015, in went on to take a role as headteacher at Co-op Academy in Leeds, where he stayed for a number of years.
Later, the 52-year-old became the headteacher of Netherwood Academy in Wombwell in Barnsley.
After taking on the new position in Barnsley, Jonny said he was still ‘proud’ of his contributions in Educating Yorkshire.
He told Barnsley Chronicle in 2020: ‘The series is very much part of Thornhill and there’s a legacy there. The whole franchise did a great deal for the teaching profession. It opened the public’s eyes to something they’d only experienced 25 or 30 years ago.’
The couple, who ‘don’t care what people think’, maintain that they have supported each other ‘through thick and thin’
Despite there being a whopping 27-years between them, the blogger claimed her parents are ‘completely fine’ with the relationship
Lat year, the south Yorkshire school, which is believed to still be headed by Jonny, found itself at the heart of a ‘racism’ scandal.
A black teacher slammed the institution for ‘doing nothing’ after a year nine student wrote a racist slur on a classroom chair on Windrush Day in 2022.
According to a report in The Star, an agency teacher, Sarah Gowers discovered the graffiti after a black student approached her and said ‘Miss, I don’t want you to see what’s written here, it’s horrible.’
The incident saw the pupil suspended the rest of the school year. However, Miss Gowers has since said the school failed to support pupils in the week that followed, and missed a key opportunity to teach the students of the harm done.
The teacher insisted not enough had been done by the school operators, Astrea Academy Trust.
She told the publication: ‘It was Windrush Day – race should have been at the forefront of the mind of teachers and students. Instead I was questioned in front of my class when I was upset, there was no all-staff email about what happened, there was no assembly for Y9s – they didn’t even remove the chair.
‘The incident was bubbling under the surface around the school. Pupils were talking about it among themselves. Pupils came up to me and said ‘is it true you got so-and-so expelled?’ The school did nothing about this to support me or break up these discussions. It continued until the end of the term.’
Astrea Academy Trust said in a statement Miss Gowers had been ‘offered support’ and claimed that and racism ‘has no place’ at Netherwood Academy.