In my role as a journalist I come across some gems. One such gem was to attend the first ever ‘Kensington Readers’ Cup Challenge’, aka Junior (well very) ‘University Challenge’. With the lighting set to dim in the auditorium, four sets of three children sat at desks, with flourescent red buzzers to frantically press, a screen behind which flashed up with the name of their school every time they answered a question correctly, accompanied by rousing music.
So the scene was set. Bright eyed, excited but composed children from Fox, Colville, St Mary Abbots and St Thomas’ prepared for their first experience of a public competition. Questions were set to Roald Dahl’s The BFG, Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Cosmic and Anne Holm’s I am David. For the General Knowledge section questions were set to books of the Victorian era – quite a challenge when you are only ten or eleven! Audience participation was expected too and correct answers were enthusiastically rewarded with a sweet thrown to the appropriate child (or sometimes an eager adult).
The compere, judge and adjudicator (staff from Thomas’s London Day School, Kensington) were suitably dressed for the occasion in tuxedo and were so professional and at ease in their roles that I assumed an outside company had been bought in for the purpose. Mr Corey (the Latin teacher) with just as serious approach to the task as Jeremy Paxman (albeit with a twinkle in his eye) was barely allowed to draw breath in his question before a child would interrupt with a beam (and usually accompanied by a reflex hand shot in the air) with the correct answer – followed by high 5’s all round from the children.
The prize, a large cup was won by Fox Primary School after a nail biting tie with St Mary Abbots. Michael Korel, Events Manager at Waterstones Kensington, accompanied by Laura Malkin of the Thomas’s Schools Foundation (TSF) presented the prizes which included vouchers to spend at Waterstones for the school library. It was an hour of pure fun, and credit must go to Lida Cepuch of TSF for masterminding (excuse the pun) the event, the Headmistress for encouraging it, and the staff and children who so gamely took part.
Afterwards, one little girl in the audience, declared to her mother when she was older (in three years time) she wanted to take part in the Kensington Readers’ Cup Challenge. Tremendous!
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Images and copyright: Lucy Elliott The Kensington Magazine
Recently Kuoni in Kensington High St. hosted an evening with Simon Reeve for residents and friends to meet him and learn more about his recent travels for the BBC programme ‘Indian Ocean’. The evening was informal and very relaxed, Simon is charismatic and down to earth, even to the description of how in Mogadishu (the most dangerous city on earth) he had to wear special shrapnel protective boxers. His knowledge of sustainable development is enormous and he is passionate about it, e.g. pointing out that we should not be overly critical of other countries with a heavy deforestation programme, since we only have to look at the UK to see we too have lost many of our forests. Kuoni were extremely generous with the champagne and nibbles, Simon an excellent and most informative talker – a combination of which is bound to have encouraged some on the night to sign up for the more exotic trips Kuoni offer (without the camera crew of course).
