Survivor teacher Susannah Moffat is now looking for a head who will not be discouraged by her flirtation with TV gameshow exposure. Michael Shaw reports
AFTER surviving life on a tropical island where the poisonous frogs had nothing on the venomous scheming of her fellow TV contestants, Susannah Moffat now faces her next tough challenge - finding a new teaching job.
The English and drama teacher from Wimbledon in south-west London is heading back to the classroom after narrowly missing out on the pound;1 million prize on ITV gameshow Survivor.
Susannah reached the final of the gruelling competition after three months on the remote island off the coast of Panama in Central America.
During the contest the 28-year-old had to eat live crab, cope with poisonous frogs and forge alliances with the other contestants.
At one point she grew so fed-up with using leaves as toilet paper she resorted to tearing out pages from her luxury item, an edition of the complete works of Shakespeare.
“As an English teacher I’ve always believed in being inventive and practical with Shakespeare.” she said. “And I didn’t use the sonnets.”
On the programme Susannah said she feared she came across to the other contestants as an “arty-farty teacher with a posh accent”.
But she now believes that the skills she picked up working at an all-girls secondary school in Kingston, south-west London, were key to her success.
“Most of the other contestants had been in the services and the armed forces,” she said. “I think my school experiences helped because I was used to working long hours, and having to be creative with limited resources.”
Susannah said she had been reluctant to give up her teaching post in January to take part in the programme, but was today planning to hunt through the jobs section of The TES.
She hopes to find a school where she can teach media studies, saying that her time on Survivor has given her a rare insight into the workings of a major television programme and experience of being the subject of tabloid scrutiny.
“I hope to find a headteacher who will be open-minded, and won’t be put off because I was on the programme,” she said. “I gave up a job in marketing to work as a teacher . It’s my chosen profession, and I’d still be teaching even if I’d won the pound;1 million.”
