How true to life is Channel 4's Fresh Meat?

JP and Kingsley check out the newcomers in 'Fresh Meat', Channel 4's sitcom of student life.?Photo: ALAMY

As the youngest journalist at the Telegraph of the grand age of 22, it falls to me to answer whether Fresh Meat – Channel 4’s titillating follow-up to The Inbetweeners – truthfully portrays what it is like to be a modern day first year student at university.

Despite taking place 130 miles away in Manchester, the show exudes many of the qualities of my own time at Durham University, but with added sex, drugs and squalor.

I encountered few extreme characters at my alma mater. Drug abuse was scarcely seen and casual use was in the minority. University life as portrayed on Fresh Meat is one giant love-fest, but even the most libidinous of my friends would fail to match the bountiful encounters on the show.

The Fresh Meat gang embraces many of the stereotypes that I found studying in the quaint Northern town of Durham. The nerdy, rotund Howard is akin to many of my fellow Computer Scientists. His sarcastic banter and discomfort with the opposite sex (there were two females on my course) would have fitted right into my hellish Theory of Computation lectures.

The geek was not the most common stereotype in Durham. One would be far more likely to bump into a rude, arrogant and self-obsessed type, which the public schooled JP is modelled on. Such personalities are easy to spot: sandals and shorts in January, luminous body warmers and joggers from Jack Wills. Jack Whitehall manages to play JP so well; you could almost say he is just playing himself.

However, student living as depicted on Channel 4 has little in common with the one I knew. Freshers entering Durham walk straight into luxurious student accommodation, a world away from the damp squalor of Fresh Meat’s student housing.

For those with political persuasions, there was little risk of getting kettled and beaten by police. The closest Durham came to a riot was a march of 200 students (out of 16,000) through the city, with a notable appearance from the Hatfield College Jazz ensemble. Instead of solidarity anthems, they treated protesters to insipid renditions of Rage Against the Machine.

Overall, the key aspect that Fresh Meat nails is the overwhelming awkwardness throughout the first year of university. From the first day, awkwardness is everywhere. Lectures, socials, pubs, clubs, libraries, dates and labs are all undermined by the urge to fit in and feel at home.

Fresh Meat manages to capture this to the extreme and this is why the series has been enjoyed by so many and has much in common with my first 12 months of student bliss.

Fresh Meat is on Channel 4 tonight at 10.00pm

Fresh warning over A-level grade inflation

A-level results have increased much quicker than scores in the IB, according to figures.?Photo: PA

Data shows that average scores have increased by almost a quarter – 24 per cent – since the mid-90s.

Over the same period, results in the International Baccalaureate – a Swiss-based qualification favoured by dozens of independent schools – rose by less than 4.5 per cent.

The disclosure, in an analysis by the website Socialglue Schools Guide will fuel concerns that the sharp year-on-year rise in A-level grades is down to politically-motivated changes to the exam – and the comparable ease of tests – instead of rising standards in schools.

Jonathan Gittos, the website’s editor, said: “IB and A-level are taken by candidates of the same age and same schools.

“IB grades have gone up slightly in the UK compared to the rest of the world but the only reasonable explanation, we can think of, for most of the rise in A-level grades, is that the exam has become easier”.

He added: “One of the attractions of the IB is that it’s administered from Geneva and so seen as being freer from political interference and more reliable.”

Currently, students are awarded a certain number of points for each A-level exam, with higher grades attracting more points.

According to figures, the average points per entry in 1996 was 181.3, but by 2011 this increased to 224.7 – a rise of almost 24 per cent.

Over the same period, average points in the IB, which uses a different scoring system, increased from 31.6 to just 33 – a rise of 4.4 per cent.

The rise comes after Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, claimed that a shake-up of the traditional A-level grading structure was needed because of the rise in top grades.

He suggested that a fixed proportion of elite A* grades could be awarded each year to mark out the most exceptional candidates.

An alternative system in which all pupils are ranked in set order according to their performance in comparison with other teenagers could also be introduced, he said.

Speaking last month, Mr Gove insisted education standards had risen in recent years but not by the extent witnessed in exam results.

The rise may be driven by exam re-sits, the introduction of bite-sized modules and highly-structured questions that “sometimes lead the students by the hand through the process of acquiring marks”, he said.