Two Kent Law School students, Morton Thornton and Ella ten Doeschate, along with Johanne Thompson (convenor of the School Tasking project) visited the University of Warwick to watch the Champion of Champions Final of School Tasking, an outreach project based on the highly entertaining Taskmaster TV show. They threw their support behind the team from the Southern region.
It was a hilariously entertaining show, and there was nonstop laughing throughout as the pupils worked together to take on the ultimate silly challenges, in front of an audience of children from across the country who came to support their schools. It was organised excellently by Dr Ali Struthers and hosted by the brilliantly funny Dr Little Alex Horne, and to top it off, it was a pleasure to meet them both afterwards.
Being part of one of the school teams, second year Law with a Language student Ella explains her experience of School Tasking: ‘Teaching various aspects of the law to children through this project was a fantastic experience. Being able to teach and encourage pupils who may not have previously believed in their own abilities was fantastic, and doing so in an engaging way through the use of my own hobbies was brilliant. I used juggling as a way of keeping pupils engaged and crocheted a doll of Alex Horne to help them visualise and immerse themselves into the tasks. Most importantly, however, I enjoyed being able to utilise my own legal knowledge and experience to inspire younger generations. The way they approached the tasks was incredible, they had great ideas throughout, and one of the teams I taught even made it to the regional heat!’
With his experience teaching Year 5 pupils at Blean Primary School, Canterbury, Law PhD student Morton says: ‘I worked with our ‘Taskmasters’ school, who were responsible for judging other Kent ‘competitor’ schools. As well as helping to deliver the sessions, it was my job to keep the sessions going while groups of pupils were taken out to judge the tasks done by the other schools. While it was a little challenging at times to manage a larger group of about 60 pupils, I was very impressed with the energy and creativity with which they approached the tasks. They coped phenomenally well with some big topics in law, coming up with clever answers, and some even anticipated further legal developments that we didn’t cover! Perhaps most impressive was how confident they were in the advocacy task, where they did a mini moot in front of the whole class.’
Read more about Kent law School’s involvement in the School tasking project this year here.