At the chalkface Dream School


ARE YOU watching Jamie Oliver’s Dream School? Celebs – the “most brilliant minds in Britain” – go teaching. Dear me, it’s car crash stuff. I’m still recovering from the David Starkey Experience. “Hello failures! Hello fat


boy!” said the world-class mind, a PHD (Cantab) in Feudal Condescension, as a starter. “Only Disconnect” seemed to be his motto. He taunted his baffled charges with some ancient gold bling, quite beyond their pathetic means. I was surprised they didn’t deck the pompous pedant and nick the lot. It just got worse, until the great man sulked off in very high dudgeon. Simon Callow had a florid monologue at no-one and Dr Robert Winston lugged in some dead rats and a fat pig – I thought it was Starkers for a moment. No such luck. It was then sliced up with a saw – exit teenage girls copiously vomiting. Mary Beard’s Latin lesson was much better, because she seemed to like the children. She too used an inspirational teaching aid – David Beckham’s tattoos. I’m not sure about these


stimuli. It reminded me of my own Teaching Practice in the late 60s. English teachers were always lugging stuff in to turn on the tots – anchors and seaweed for The Ancient Mariner, daffodils for Wordsworth, a skull for Webster and, once, a real White Witch forMacbeth. All a bit pointless – or worse...


In my first week I was “doing”


Yeats’Cat and Moon with a 9th year. “Can I bring my cat in?” said a tiny girl. Of course. “Can we bring our pets in?”


said large boys. Of course. Marvellous… I approached the school next


morning with a light heart. There was much howling and barking and chirping and growling in the foyer. Pets. Wild life. A hugely miffed headmistress gazed balefully, like Noah at the menagerie around her – at cats, dogs,


budgies, parrots and the


odd crocodile. “Who told you to do


this?” she thundered. “Wigwam!” Wigwam the student


teacher. “For our poetry!”


I explained we were doing


Yeats. She explained, rather too publicly, that I was a fucking halfwit and that all animals and


their owners and their teacher had to leave the premises before someone was eaten. “Thank goodness we weren’t


doing Blake’s Tyger,” I observed. Flash lessons with small classes


are all very well, but you can’t do 25 a week with big classes. A celeb or not, you’d just conk out or go bonkers – like Starkers. He should stop sulking and check out a proper TV programme – Phil Beadle’s The Unteachables – which shows just how complex and difficult this teaching lark can be.


• Ian Whitwham is a former secondary school teacher.


by Daniel White


Astronomers, Formula 1 technology, and chocolate-welding were among an eclectic array of attractions at a major London science fair this week. The Big Bang UK Young


Scientists and Engineers Fair took place from Thursday to Saturday (March 10-12) and saw thousands of visitors, including a number of school groups. Taking place at London’s ExCel,


the event featured 120 interac- tive activities, demonstrations and experiments, and also gave students the chance to find out about the


range of careers in the fields of sci- ence and engineering. Visitors were able to discover


how to weld big structures using chocolate, uncover the science behind sound, meet astronomers, and see the latest technologies being used in a Formula 1 sports car. The event also hosted the


finals of the National Science and Engineering Awards. The competi- tion challenges students aged 11 to 18 to present science projects dur- ing the event. Among the winners were


Hannah Eastwood, 18, from Loreto College in Coleraine, and Andrew Cowan, 18, from Sutton Grammar School in London.


Science success: A student enjoys a bubbly surprise at the Big Bang Fair (main image), while Hannah Eastwood (second left) and Andrew Cowan (second right) collect their science and engineering awards from broadcaster Professor Brian Cox (centre), chief scientific advisor Sir John Beddington, and STEM ambassador Kate Bellingham


Hannah won the Senior Science


and Maths category with her project exploring how chromium can be removed from drinking water and reclaimed for the steel industry. Andrew won the title in the Senior Engineering and Technology


category for his Search and Rescue Robot, which features a camera and fire extinguisher allowing the user to control the robot from a remote control panel. For full details, visit www.thebigbangfair.co.uk


News Big Bang brings science to life


SecEddigital You can:


• Search the issue for keywords • Access archived editions


• Bookmark and annotate pages for colleagues • Email issues and news directly to the editor • Search the latest teaching jobs


If you want to receive


SecEddigital free every week, email editor@sec-ed.co.uk


16 SecEd • March 17 2011


UK education news, best practice features, the very best comment and opinion


– All to your email, All for free – Register now!


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16