Best book ever

Gordon, by Edith Templeton (1966). A very unconventional read about a sado-masochistic relationship between a woman and a psychiatrist; a hypnotic book that challenges your notions of sexuality, and I like to be challenged. Recommended bymy 72-year-old mother.

Best film ever

Legend (starring Tom Cruise and Mia Sara) is a beautiful fantasy, a feast of visual imagery that sucks you into an alternative world. My daughter introduced me to it.

School visit

We took some students to Berlin and visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which was a profound experience. An aura of trauma seemed to seep out of everything and there were pictures of mountains of shoes, clothes and hair. Our key stage 3 and 4 pupils have taken over a room to create an installation from personal effects to look at the implications of human action.

Best resource

Finders Keepers: eight collectors (Radius) has exquisite photographs by Rosamund Wolff Purcell of the most bizarre sets of collections, with text by Stephen Jay Gould. We use it in the department as a source of images and ideas. Our departmental website (currently being rebuilt) has information about our Artworks project and pages of rich visuals: www.trinity.warwickshire.sch.uk

To share with pupils

Artist Alison Lambert draws huge heads and Greek classical figures (example pictured) and I’m getting pupils to work with her. I went to her studios last summer and have set up a drawing project with Year 12. I think students will learn a lot. I also want them to see it’s possible to make a living in art.

Treat in store

A visit to South Africa, where my cousin lives, at Easter. I’m reading Long Walk to Freedom, Anthony Sampson’s biography of Nelson Mandela, and I want to visit Robben Island. I want to explore the country on a social and political as well as cultural level.

Sheridan Horn, 42, is head of fine art at Trinity Catholic technical college, Leamington Spa, where she has taught for 17 years. Her department won a national Artworks award in 2003 for work by sixth-form students. She was talking to Elaine Williams