Men Of The Year: Mr Burton

The inspirational school teacher who pulled off his very own King’s Speech moment...

The year’s most something-in-my-eye TV moment was provided by Educating Yorkshire’s Matt Burton, the star of Channel 4’s docusoap who cured troubled student Musharaf’s stutter. We talk fame and classroom miracles with a cult hero...

How have you found fame?

Very surreal. But it’s also been very complimentary. It’s not easy to go over to somebody in Pizza Express just to say well done, so it’s incredible that people have done that.

Do you think it’s changed people’s ideas about teaching?

Teaching gets a bashing in the media. It's a strange one, because it is a brilliant job and if the show has done anything to highlight how hard teachers work, and what a good job teachers do, then that’s great.

How rare is something like what happened with Musharaf?

Moments like that don’t come often. Minor miracles happen every day when you teach a child a skill that they’ll remember forever. But to see Musharaf get his words out was special.

(Image: Channel 4)