When Ali Struthers (School of Law) noticed the connections between Channel 4's Taskmaster and her academic field of law, she wondered how this could influence her outreach work - and the School Tasking project was created. We caught up with Ali to hear more about the impact the project's had.

Hi Ali! Tell us about the School Tasking project and how it came about...

Alongside my academic role in the School of Law, I’m also Director of Widening Participation. Because I’m a big Taskmaster fan, I thought it would be really fun to use the format of this brilliant and nonsensical TV show in our outreach work, to make it really exciting and engaging for primary school kids.

There are very obvious connections between Taskmaster and education, but also between Taskmaster and law. Both are about rules and interpreting language, and often stretching that language to almost breaking point (either incurring the wrath of a judge, or the wrath of Greg Davies…).

From this, School Tasking was born. We run sessions with Year 5 classes in schools in less advantaged areas, where the children learn a little bit about law, they do Taskmaster-style tasks that relate to that learning, and they’re competing against their classmates and other schools for a place at the Final and the chance to become School Tasking Champions!

Since its launch, the project has started to inspire a nationwide rollout to other universities. How's the planning for this going?

The national rollout of School Tasking will start in September this year. 2022-23 was the second year of the pilot stage at Warwick, and a pilot is currently being run by Lindsay Jack at the University of Edinburgh. I did suggest to Lindsay that she might like to throw some controversial ‘dunkability’ chat into the discussions we have during School Tasking about whether Jaffa Cakes are cakes or biscuits. According to a new study, Jaffa Cakes are the most stable ‘biscuit’ to dunk, but from a legal point of view, that’s a very controversial statement…

The final of Warwick’s project took place at the end of March, featuring teams from local schools. What was a highlight from the day?

It’s difficult to pick out just one highlight. The kids come onto campus and they really do throw themselves into the tasks with such gusto. One of the tasks involves the teams making a Lego stop motion animation about a court case from the 1800s that has particularly gruesome, Horrible Histories-esque vibes. That’s always really fun, because the kids go to town on the grisly elements! I’m constantly blown away by how quickly they can build the Lego, master the tech, and add all these fantastic extras, like zooming in, and weather features!

Just like in the original Taskmaster TV show, the School Tasking project provides the chance for all children to shine based on their particular talents and skills. Have you noticed that this approach boosts confidence in participants?

I’m so glad you asked this question, because I think this is the element of the project that I’m most proud of. To give just one example from many, one of the in-school tasks involves the children making a simple legal submission to camera (about a Taskmaster-related personal injury disaster…). The Teaching Assistant in one of our schools came up to say that she wasn’t sure if a particular team of children, who all had additional support needs, had been preparing and would therefore be able to make their submission. Two of the children then came up to be filmed and made the most wonderfully confident and well-planned submission. The TA said, "Please can you send me that footage to send to their parents and put in their learning journals, because I’ve never seen them so confident." That was a real stand-out moment for me.

Channel 4 has now announced that a child-led version of the show – Junior Taskmaster – will be launched soon. Will you be watching?

Absolutely! Children approach tasks in such creative, interesting and often hilarious ways, so it’ll be brilliant for them to take centre-stage in Junior Taskmaster!