Monthly Archives: February 2012
Failure Week
Just when I thought I’d heard it all, I read today that a top girls’ school is planning a “failure week” to teach pupils to embrace risk, build resilience and learn from their mistakes.
The emphasis will be on the value of having a go, rather than playing it safe and perhaps achieving less. Pupils at Wimbledon High School will be asked how they feel when they fail.
The headmistress, Heather Hanbury, said she wanted to show “it is completely acceptable and completely normal not to succeed at times in life.”
There will be workshops, assemblies, and activities for the girls, with parents and tutors joining in with tales of their own failures. YouTube clips of famous and successful people who have failed along the way and moved on will be shown. The emphasis will be discussions on the merits of failure and on the negative side of trying too hard not to fail.
Wimbledon High is an independent school, part of the Girls’ Day School Trust.
GDST chief executive, Helen Fraser, said: “Resilience is so important in working life these days.
“Wimbledon High School is showing how making mistakes is not necessarily a bad thing, that it is fine to try – and fail – and then pick yourself up and try again – or as Samuel Beckett said, ‘fail better’.”
I appreciate that this is a good lesson to be learned, but at £3,380 a term for Juniors and £4,343 a term for Seniors, I bet all the parents are delighted!
We all love an eccentric …
… but we especially love a well-known face who is eccentric – and they don’t come much weirder than Man City’s Mario Balotelli!
Phwoarrrr!!!!
Manchester City footballer Mario Balotelli shocked students and teachers when he wandered into a local school during lunchtime recently to ask if he could use the toilets. Roaring up to the school in his luxury white Bentley at 1.30pm one Thursday, blues star Balotelli parked his distinctive vehicle and strolled into the canteen at Xaverian College in Manchester. The loopy Italian then asked to be pointed to the bathrooms before embarking on an impromptu meet-and-greet.
Accompanied by three friends, Balotelli cruised into the staffroom to speak to surprised teachers, before bowling around the campus as the student supporters of Manchester City cheered. After 20 minutes, Balotelli climbed back into his Bentley and drove off, leaving stunned students in his wake.
This is not the first time that Mario Balotelli has entertained us with his capricious capers.
When the footballer crashed his Audi R8 in 2010, a police pat down uncovered £5,000 in cash in his back pocket. Asked why he had so much money on him, he simply replied “because I am rich”.
Balotelli and his brother were arrested for driving into an all-female prison in Italy. After questioning by police, they said they had simply gone in because they were “curious”.
The Italian also walked into a pub over Christmas 2010 and put £1,000 behind the bar for local drinkers before spending the night on soft drinks. Later, during Midnight Mass at St John’s Church, Chorlton he stuffed £200 into the collection box.
It didn’t take much searching to find this hilarious video – Love him or hate him, he could never be accused of being boring!!!
Give that man a Knighthood!
Well now that the Queen has finally bowed to public pressure and stripped “Fred the Shred” of his Knighthood, does that mean there is one going spare? If so, who is more worthy than one Mr Chris King (aged 27 & 1/3)?
For those that have missed this story, Chris King is the writer of the letter from Sainsbury’s that has made such a stir on Social Networks over the past couple of weeks.
In May 2011, Lily Robinson (aged 3 & 1/2) wrote to the supermarket, suggesting that the bread should be called giraffe bread.
She received a letter back saying that renaming it was “a brilliant idea”.
Lily’s letter said: “Why is tiger bread called tiger bread? It should be called giraffe bread. Love from Lily Robinson age 3 and 1/2”.
Chris King from the Sainsbury’s customer services team wrote back: “I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea – it looks much more like the blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn’t it?”
But he went on to explain how it had got its name: “It is called tiger bread because the first baker who made it a looong time ago thought it looked stripey like a tiger. Maybe they were a bit silly.”
He included a £3 gift card, and signed the letter “Chris King (age 27 & 1/3)”.
For once, on receiving such positive publicity, there has been a statement today from the supermarket saying:
“In response to overwhelming customer feedback that our tiger bread has more resemblance to a giraffe, from today we will be changing our tiger bread to giraffe bread and seeing how that goes.”
Apparently Mr King no longer works for Sainsbury’s but is studying to be a primary school teacher – he sounds as though he’ll make a terrific teacher and will surely cost the UK a lot less than those scurrilous bankers … Arise Sir Chris!
Tessa's Blog 