Monday, February 02, 2009

Playing in the snow with Carol Vorderman

I quite like this idea, I am sure this is a case of how can we rescue the launch of a policy initiative when snowed in but I still quite like it. In fact it probably works better than the original.



What we should have seen is David Cameron, Michael Gove and Carol Vorderman launching an initiative to inspire children to be better at mathematics. The venue would have been Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College in Lewisham (a heavily over-subscribed academy with a strong reputation whose alumni include newsreader Fiona Bruce, musicians and lyricists Joe Strummer and Steve Harley and the Wright-Phillips - not exactly a school where the children are likely to fail at maths perhaps). But instead, due to snow the school was closed and so Cameron and Vorderman went to throw snowballs at one another while at the same time delivering the message that schools needed to do better. But, and for a party this is important, what is most interesting. The tour of the school, with celebrity in tow or not, or the more playful snowball fight that many may be interested in watching that culminates in a bit of party branding and a political message. In an age when people may be bored with party politics and fail to engage with messages of substance, this may have been a far better way to reach the widest audience. It has the branding, the celebrity endorsement and a pull factor; Hatchams College may have been a bit dry in comparison.

1 comment:

Matt Hurst said...

Anyhow it would be nice if Voderman actually "cared" after all she encourages almost daily taking out unpayable loans which she probably recieves a very decent little sum for.

As for the figure, it sounds disgusting and it is, but a Child's education espically in the basics starts at about 3, this means there are still kids in standard Education that started 10 years ago which is also about the time Labour have been in power.

As one of the 3.5 Million, I'm a little annoyed at being used as a political tool, espically as only my final two years of standard education finished under Labour.

And anyhow the rate of good grades have gone up by just over 9% over the last 10 years.