How high above sea level could you get an egg without breaking it? How would you transport a banana across a classroom ‘in the most spectacular way’? Or what about making ‘the biggest and best circle’ you can in three minutes?

These off-the-wall questions are just a small example of the weird and wonderful tasks school children face when taking part in Taskmaster Education, a spin-off of the globally popular Taskmaster show and brainchild of ‘little’ Alex Horne - who also acts as leader of The Horne Section band, this year’s hosts of the Tes Awards 2024 on 21 June.

“Taskmaster Education, like Taskmaster itself, started a bit by accident but has taken on a life of its own,” he tells Tes.

That “accident” took place in 2019 when Horne says he went to his son’s primary school to host a day with pupils doing fun tasks like those in the show - and immediately saw the positive impact it had.

“Straight away it was obvious the tasks were a great way of getting all kids engaged - whether they were mathematic, sporty, team-players or individually-minded, they all got something from it.”

He gives an example of a task for pupils to find out how long a ball of string was: “Some kids realised they knew how tall one of them was and they could measure out the string that way, and others tried working out the width of the classroom was and then using the string that way.”

He adds: “Just like in the TV show, you get different brains working in different ways.”

Up and running

While that experience was a one-off, word reached Horne of a deputy headteacher called James Blake-Lobb who was also setting fun Taskmaster-inspired games for children, and so he went along to help out and give out some awards.

Blake-Lobb then teamed up with a University of Warwick lecturer called Ali Struthers to offer the idea to all schools, and Taskmaster Education was born - with Horne getting involved by checking task ideas, offering up his own and recording videos pupils watch when tasks are set.

The offering is broken down into three different school types - primary, secondary and international settings - and while there is no deliberate attempt to link it to specific subjects, he says having two educators leading on the tasks being created does provide relevance when possible.

“We don’t say ‘this is science week’ because we’re keen to disguise the educational element in a way, but [James and Ali] have absolutely shown me bits of the curriculum [that certain tasks] are really useful for so it has got that in mind.”

Life lessons

For Horne though, a big part of Taskmaster Education is that it gets kids to “think outside the box, bend the rules” and - and sometimes even cheat a bit.

“In the egg task, I had signed the eggs so pupils couldn’t cheat but one girl actually tried to forge my signature so we had to expose that cheating, but in a fun way. To be honest, cheating is almost encouraged, although it’s usually discovered.”

He says too that the fact the tasks lead to winners and losers is good to help children get used to that reality: “I think it’s a really good thing for kids and a lot of the time they don’t mind because it’s silly and they are just having fun.”

In fact, he says sometimes the losing team is more than happy to concede their attempt at a certain task was laughable because of how absurd the tasks are.

“One task we set is to make a piece of art using post-it notes on the classroom wall and I then go around and say ‘that’s great’ or ‘that’s awful’ and they quite like when we tell them it’s rubbish because they’re in teams, it’s funny, it’s all throwaway, so they don’t mind.”

For anyone reading this and thinking it sounds like good fun and they’d love to have a go themselves then there is more information on the Taskmaster Education website.

Audience participation

However, for anyone attending the Tes School Awards later this month...the opportunity may reveal itself in other ways.

“We [the band] always do a bit of audience participation but on this occasion we are combining a bit of Taskmaster with it. There is one task which everyone needs to do although no one will be singled out…well one person will be, but they’ll be in safe hands.”

What that entails, Horne is tight-lipped about. However, he says he is thrilled about the idea of presenting the awards given his own happy memories of school and the teachers that inspired him.

“I loved school - I liked to please and I was a good boy and I really liked certain teachers and there was one teacher who was particularly inspirational,” he says - adding that since becoming a parent his respect for the sector has only increased.

“Now that I’ve got three kids in school, and we’ve all gone through the pandemic and attempting to do some home teaching, you realize even more what an important job it is.”

Taskmaster Club is now being run in a variety of educational and extra-curricular settings across the globe. You can find out more on the website: https://taskmastereducation.com/clubs