Edinburgh organises first full roll-out of School Tasking in Scotland

The innovative outreach project enables young people to learn about interesting aspects of the law through fun and interactive tasks set in the style of Channel 4 game show Taskmaster.

The project currently runs at Warwick Law School and Edinburgh Law School but will run across 25 UK universities in academic year 2023-24.

Edinburgh Law School’s School Tasking sees participating Primary 6 classes work in teams of five to complete various tasks and prize tasks. Some elements are scored, and the highest-scoring team from each school will come to the final on campus in June where the winning team will be crowned School Tasking Champions 2023.

The in-school sessions introduce pupils to interesting areas of law and give them opportunities to practice key skills such as teamwork, communication and lateral thinking. The variety of tasks the pupils take part in gives every pupil a chance to shine and show off their skills and talents. Tasks vary widely, and include drawing, wordsearches, acting out court cases, using Lego to depict legal cases, coming up with laws, and many more. The final involves some serious competition (!) between the schools, and it tends to get very messy.

Working with Director of Student Experience, Lindsay Jack, 15 current LLB students have been trained to deliver the sessions in the participating schools. The Judges are made up of some members of academic staff at the Law School, and some other university and legal contacts for the big final. Avalon, the production company behind Taskmaster, as well as Alex Horne, the creator and star of the show, are very supportive of the School Tasking project. Created and led by Warwick Law School’s Dr Ali Struthers, Edinburgh Law School is proud to have been part of the project since its inception.

School Tasking helps to normalise conversations around university study. It aims to break down some of the barriers and misconceptions young people and their supporters might have about attending university. It opens up the conversation about the range of subjects that can be studied and presents university as a realistic destination open to a wide range of applicants.

Lindsay Jack recently attended the University of Warwick’s School Tasking Final where one task saw the pupils creating a stop motion animation using Lego to depict the legal case of R v Dudley and Stephens from 1884. This case grabs the pupils’ attention as it involves cannibalism, the high seas, murder and a defence of necessity!

Lindsay Jack told BBC Coventry and Warwick: “It’s about encouraging people to think about university as a realistic option but more importantly it’s about spreading hope, kindness and joy into our local communities which I think universities have a responsibility to do with all the resources that we have at hand.”

School Tasking is part of our widening participation work. The participating schools are ones we already work with through the University's Primary and Early Secondary Years Initiative , and we welcome this chance to strengthen our links with them. For further information, please contact our widening participation lead Lindsay Jack Lindsay.Jack@ed.ac.uk

Learn more about School Tasking

Taskmaster Education – School Tasking

Top image credit: hollisphotography.uk