Swot with celebrity squares

7th January 2000, 12:00am

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Swot with celebrity squares

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/swot-celebrity-squares
NOW, since it really is the Millennium after all that hype, there will never be a better year to be bold and adventurous in our schools. And the key message from young people in a recent consultation report for the Scottish Executive is that, in this new era, lessons must be more fun.

I suggest celebrity staff in the nation’s schools in 2000 would have a tremendous galvanising effect. They could be drawn from those famous people who are altruistic, publicity-mad or just desperately seeking work.

Artist Tracey Emin, for example, could help in home economics, sex education, drama, art and design. Imagine working with staff to create the deputy head’s Bed in Room 3.

More useful artistic input could come from Yoko Ono talking her own brand of nonsense with potential high savings on expensive instruments: “Decide on one note you want to play. Play it with the following accompaniment - the woods from 5 to 8am in summer.”

Sex education would be enlivened by a knockabout debate between Bishop Holloway and Cardinal Winning (and may the tallest man win, I say), with practical demonstrations from Stephen Norris. Cherie and Tony, of course, could take a lovely parentcraft class in the spring.

A Holloway-Winning duel, could also help revive good old-fashioned school debating skills. Prince William could drop in from Edinburgh or St Andrews university to debate blood sports with Brigitte Bardot. (You could charge screaming girls and steamed-up heidies an entry fee, which would help pay for repairs to the toilets.)

Billy Connolly is clearly yer man to teach students about the media , while there must be a visiting post for composer James McMillan, bolstering pupils’ pride in their Scottish identity. Leading Scots Proddie Lorenzo Amoruso could lead the anti-racism programme, doubling up to teach the lip-reading course.

Talking of sporting genius (though it breaks my heart as an Inverurie quine to say so) there’s no doubt football coaching would have to go to the Aberdeen FC defence. Having let in about 500 goals since August, they desperately need a new job - as we fans have been trying to tell the club for years.

In the school canteen, there will be nutritional standards for school meals for the first time since the Tories scrapped them in 1980. Disastrously, you cannot have chips more than three times a week. Clearly a time to bring newly impoverished duo Neil and Christine Hamilton into our kitchens, to rustle up a little gourmet something a la Paris Ritz - and all for pound;1.25 a head! Don’t worry, Tories love these challenges: they were always going off to Middlesbrough to prove how easy it was to live on social security for a week.

Apparently, Britain lags shockingly behind Sweden and Japan in citizenship education. Honesty, probity and integrity in public life clearly demand snappy little lectures from dynamic duo Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken, when the latter escapes the savage regime of a jail that lets him out for Sunday lunches.

Too many Tories, you say? Well, surely Donald Dewar’s deposed chief of staff John Rafferty, who reputedly tried to flush out the civil service with a dose of salts, could be the New Labour moderniser we need. And, since he plays a fine church organ, he could double up as a peripatetic music teacher.

To fight back against the upsurge of bullying and harassment recently reported against teachers, the unions could hire famed forensic psychologist Ian Stephen. The lugubrious Cracker-style consultant could draw up profiles of psychopathic heidies, deputy heids and janitors to be published on the Internet, along with suitable photofits.

Finally, there could be a new exciting in-your-face hands-on package for the anti-bullying programme. With the help of hard men Vinnie Jones and Ross Kemp, everyone could join in to kick people’s shins and verbally torment them. You could start with Wendy and Douglas Alexander, Chris Tarrant, Jack Straw, Geri Halliwell, and so on. Add your own. Afterwards, staff and pupils could all discuss how you might have behaved differently.

So is everyone slotted in, then? Not quite. I see scrawled earnestly in my notes: “Lord Forsyth, Sam Galbraith and Dorothy-Grace Elder need something.” A winning combination but what would they do? Over to you, I think...


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