Warwick launches Taskmaster outreach programme

After a successful pilot in 2022, the University of Warwick’s School of Law launched the second year of its community outreach programme, School Tasking, in January.

This project, which runs in widening participation schools across the West Midlands, aims to give disadvantaged primary school children their first taste of university.

Over multiple fortnightly sessions led by University of Warwick staff and students, School Tasking introduces Year Five pupils to the study of Law through interactive and engaging classes in the style of the hit Channel 4 TV show Taskmaster.

This week, The Boar spoke to School Tasking founder Dr Ali Struthers, an associate professor at Warwick Law School. The Boar asked her first what had inspired her to set up the project.

“I set up School Tasking originally because I am really passionate about primary outreach work. I think we [universities] need to be getting into school as early as we can and telling kids they can come to university, introducing them to university subjects and university life in a way that makes them enthusiastic and engaged.”

The Boar asked her why she had based the outreach programme on Taskmaster, the very funny, but often rude, Bafta-winning game show.

I thought why not develop a project based around Taskmaster because it is pure joy, and we want to harness that joy and use it in education

– Dr Ali Struthers

“I’m a big Taskmaster fan and there are obvious links between the law and Taskmaster in that Taskmaster is all about rules, about interpreting rules, about trying to bend rules, and about trying to do things in the way that you want to do things.

“So, I thought that these links would be really interesting to use as the basis of some outreach work – I thought why not develop a project based around Taskmaster because it is pure joy, and we want to harness that joy and use it in education.”

The Boar asked how the format of Taskmaster, which requires comedians (notable former contestants include James Acaster, Katherine Ryan, and Rob Beckett) to compete against each other in a series of usually silly tasks, such as the quickest time to eat a watermelon, translated to primary education.

“It is the beauty of Taskmaster that it doesn’t just speak to one skillset.

“The tasks that we run in School Tasking require creative argument, lateral thinking, teamwork, and communication.

“For example, we’ve got a task where we ask them [the Year Five pupils] to draft a new law and to think about whether or not they can make the law unbreakable.

“This is a very creative task and also something I’m interested in – I want to see what kids think the law means from a research point of view – but I also want to see if we’ve disrupted the kids’ thinking.”

The kids really do benefit from teamwork in a space where they are all together and it’s quite interesting to see the dynamics of the kids

– Dr Ali Struthers

Ali continued to say that the competitive element of Taskmaster carried over well to the classroom.

“The pupils really like the competitive element [of School Tasking] because it’s gentle competition: they’re working in teams, they’re carrying each other along in the competition, and they get to feel that they’re part of something.

“The kids really do benefit from teamwork in a space where they are all together and it’s quite interesting to see the dynamics of the kids – they really want to win and don’t want to give away their secrets.”

Despite the attraction of a Grand Final at Warwick’s campus in the summer, Ali said that winning was not the point of the outreach programme. Instead, the purpose of School Tasking is to give disadvantaged children, who may consider further education unobtainable, a positive view of university.

“Although we focus on teaching pupils new skills, and it’s great that they learn about the law, it’s even better that they have a really good time and associate university with something positive and not something that they see as dull.

“We are quite often the first people coming in and telling these kids that they can come to university.”

Ali could not overstate the importance of the Warwick students who work with her in classrooms running sessions.

They [Warwick students] are naturally inspirational to the kids

– Dr Ali Struthers

“[For the Year 5 pupils, it is vital] just being able to speak to the students about their university life. We have some first-generation students [who work with us] and we really encourage the students to tell the kids that.

“They [Warwick students] are naturally inspirational to the kids.”

Ali’s alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, has got involved in School Tasking, running their version of the project in Scotland.

“There will be 25 unis running it next year, five unis per region each working with five schools.

“They will have a regional final and then there will be a Champion of Champions Final where the winner of each region will compete to be the overall School Tasking Champion of 2024.”

Finally, she mentioned how the creator of the original Taskmaster TV show, Alex Horne, was delighted to lend his support to the outreach programme.

“Alex Horne is genuinely the nicest person you’re ever going to meet – I can’t sing his praises highly enough; he makes videos for the kids and speaks to them at the Final.

“He’s just generally a very giving person with his time. We get the sense from Alex that he wants Taskmaster to be used for good and he sees School Tasking as doing that.”