Pupils from Skerton St Luke’s Church of England Primary came out on top of a ‘School Tasking’ Competition hosted by staff and students from Lancaster University Law School.

Approximately 120 children from four local primary schools recently participated in the national ‘School Tasking’ law programme, designed to teach children about the law in an exciting and interactive way.

The ‘School Tasking’ project has been designed and rolled out nationally by Dr Ali Struthers from Warwick Law School, with the project encouraging children to learn all about the law through undertaking a selection of fascinating and fun tasks.

The project is styled on Channel 4 TV’s Taskmaster British comedy panel game show, created by comedian and musician Alex Horne, which sees celebrities attempting to complete a series of challenges.

In this area, 15 students from Lancaster University Law School worked with Year 5 children from Ryelands Primary School, Willow Lane Community Primary School, Castle View Primary School and Skerton St Luke’s Church of England Primary School.

In the sessions the children, who learned about the law, engaging in legal skills activities and working in small teams, completed a Taskmaster-style task based around their learning.

Lessons ranged from interpreting the law, children’s rights, negligence and how the law determines whether a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit or a cake!

In addition, pupils have been asked to take on the role of a barrister and present legal arguments, engage in debates and present a child’s human rights in modelling clay.

From each school a winning team was selected and invited onto Lancaster University’s campus for a ‘Lancaster School Tasking’ final.

Following a welcome from Vice-Chancellor Professor Andy Schofield, the pupils engaged in competitive law-based activities on the theme of ‘Street Art versus Vandalism’.

This involved the pupils designing a team shield, learning about the law on vandalism and dressing up the Law students as ‘street art’ which celebrated why having laws is a good thing for the community. The competition was judged by a panel made up of the Law School’s Senior Leadership Team.

Picking their own team names, the teams who made it to the Lancaster University campus final were ‘Timmy’s’ from Ryelands Primary School 5GP, ‘Girls Rock the World’ from Ryelands Primary School 5A, ‘Captain Castle’ from Castle View Primary School, ‘Mega Space Cats’ from Skerton St Luke’s C of E Primary School and ‘Mysterious Myths’ from Willow Lane Community Primary School.

On the day of the final, Skerton St Luke’s C of E Primary School were crowned the winning team of the Lancaster University Campus final, with ‘Girls Rock the World’ from Ryelands 5A coming in as runner up.

Both teams represented the area at the regional School Tasking final in May – hosted by Manchester-based law firm Addleshaw Goddard LLP. Both teams performed excellently, with Ryelands Primary School just missing out on a place in the national final, having come in second place in a closely fought tie-break.

The Lancaster project is led by Tina McKee (Senior Lecturer and Director of Skills and Widening Participation in the Law School) and supported by Kathryn Saban (Lecturer, Law School) and Anna Cooper (Teaching Co-Ordinator, Law School).

Tina McKee said: “We loved hosting the school pupils and their teachers at Lancaster University’s campus for the Lancaster final of School Tasking. The day was filled with fun and excitement and provided an amazing opportunity for our law students to teach school children about the law.

“By delivering law lessons, our students developed many key employability skills such as public speaking, time management and organisation. Congratulations to all the school children; we have been overwhelmed by their levels of enthusiasm and engagement. We are extremely appreciative of all of the schools involved, who have fully embraced and supported this year’s project from start to finish.”