hi my name is
bobby seagal i'm a school maths teacher
author and presenter for the bbc tv
series
monkman and seagulls genius guides
so i want to tell you a little bit about
what i got up to
over lockdown things i learned
and some of the challenges and
difficulties i faced
so lockdown was an unprecedented period
for people in britain and across the
world
scenes which we've never seen before
so during these challenging times
different people
reacted in different ways i want to tell
you
my story so i'm a school teacher
with my badge and my school marker pens
and usually i'd be in school teaching my
students
but of course with the rules of lockdown
we weren't allowed to physically be in
indoor spaces like schools so my lessons
moved online so i took math classes
right from this very room
usually with a blackboard beside me
but i also taught other subjects i
taught geography for primary and
secondary
as well as history and in geography
we covered places such as indonesia
south africa
japan south korea france
and for history we looked at periods of
times
such as the victorians figures such as
winston churchill
and florence nightingale but as these
classes
were slightly different to ones in an
actual classroom
i did some crazy things as well for
example in every lesson
we do a little dance so for example a
south african class we looked at
a native african dance for a class in
india
i taught them some bollywood dancing
so it was a way of making my learning as
engaging
as possible
so outside of school i'm a big fan
of quizzing in fact i first came to
public prominence in britain
through my exploit on a show called
university challenge
which you can see here
it's a quiz show all about knowledge
so during lockdown i actually won
a tv show got broadcast called celebrity
mastermind and you can see
my trophy so my topic was england
the football team at world cups
so using that as a platform i thought
people in britain we love
our quizzing but also we love our
national health service so i created
something called
quiz for nhs every wednesday
and saturday 8pm i hosted online quizzes
right from this very room for people
through youtube facebook
instagram live and these quizzes on
wednesday
were all about football and saturday
they were family themed quizzes
but delay your standard write down
answers on a piece of paper these are
really funky quizzes and i'll tell you
how there were things such as
a pictures round there'd be a charades
round where i would act out maybe
various films
or iconic scenes from history and you
have to try and guess
what it was and at the end of every
session
there'd be a sing-along it could even be
singing in the rain we did it together
one thing i realized during lockdown is
the importance of
mental health and being aware of how
you're thinking and feeling and how
others can support you
so i did occasional videos called
thoughts of mr seagull
positive ideas on how you can be more
resilient in your day-to-day life
because these are
challenging times but even
myself i need to take some of my own
medicine
because sometimes i can work quite hard
so i did relax
i watched some netflix and in fact if
you see there i've got a michael jordan
basketball vest because i watched a
series on netflix called
the last dance and i'm so inspired by
michael jordan
and his amazing basketball career with
the chicago bulls
so lockdown has been an unprecedented
time
but i think i feel like i've learned and
developed new skills and technology and
also
the idea of taking a step back and
relaxing because sometimes
in the normal world i'm out there
rushing constantly
thank you
hello one and all at the cambridge
university press
teachers conference i'm connie huck
author of
cookie and the most annoying boy in the
world and now more recently
cookie and the most annoying girl in the
world see what i've done there in the
interests
of equality um
most of you will probably know me from
my blue peter years as the longest
serving
female blue pea to present i've just
turned my hand to
writing books which we'll come on to in
a moment but first and foremost i want
to take my hat off
to you all because i have to say um
the toughest part of lockdown for me was
definitely homeschooling
um i thought this is gonna be a piece of
cake i'm a blue peter presenter
i've worked with children all my working
life um
i've got two of my own who are primary
age they're six and eight years old
and i thought this would be a doddle but
it wasn't
at all it was probably the hardest part
of lockdown for me
um so yeah congratulations one and all
um
we salute you parents of the nation um
salute the teachers of the nation i'm
speaking on their behalf
um i think one thing that lockdown did
teach us
apart from the fact that uh we have um
quite a short temper sometimes when it
comes to homeschooling our kids
is that um there is
a need sometimes to sort of take stock
and
slow down and i think
it gave us the opportunity to do that
there are some positives that i guess
have come out of lockdown for instance
a lower carbon footprint all round less
planes in the sky less cars on the road
less consumption in general
which is a good thing for the
environment i'm sure many of you will
have heard the birds singing in the
trees
you know some mornings i'm like wow i
feel like i'm in some
tropical destination um
so there have been some positives when
it comes to the environment and also
some people may have enjoyed the
opportunity to spend more time with
their kids
and their families um and
as a writer for me it wasn't too bad
working-wise because
you couldn't write from home so i guess
i was very lucky which
brings me neatly back to the uh
writing books um
after my years on blue peter i was
asked you know would you write a book
would you write a book and while i was
on blue peter we started the blue peter
book awards
i'd interviewed many brilliant authors
such as jk rowling
and jacqueline wilson i've been on the
judging panel for the blue peter book
awards
many times um and then now having had my
own children
um i am reading to them
every night and i pretty much know the
marker i always thought that if i write
a book
you know i didn't jump at it because i i
wanted
it to be something new that would bring
something different to the market not
just another children's book and i
really hope
that i've done that with these
books the idea of them
is to sort of tuck in
stealth education so the character is
very much into science
um and education and knowledge the first
book is
all themed around that and there's lots
of um
activities and interactive bits and
pieces that kids
can try out and then the second book is
all about saving the planet
and the environment and being
eco-friendly
um but i always like to say it's like
hidden vegetables in a pasta sauce
kids don't realize they're getting the
goodness they just think they're getting
a yummy pasta sauce or
alternatively a funny laugh out loud
romp of
a book but tucked in there
is stealth education stealth learning
stealth work stealth diversity
and you know unless we get kids when
they're young
then people are shaped and formed
by adulthood and it's sort of very late
in the day to try and undo ingrained
thought patterns i always say that
primary school children are shaping um
it consolidates in the secondary years
by your 20s you need
you know the blueprint is set and by
your 30s you need therapy to undo all
the things that have gone on
uh in in those formative years so it's
really really important to get
kids reading kids that read do better in
life studies have shown
and it's really really important as well
because books give empathy more than
any other medium um and you know if we
have a society of adults full of empathy
the world would just be a better place
um you know that is something that can
look after
all the woes of society liberal amounts
of
empathy globally um in adults
everywhere but anyway i hope i've um
been entertaining and maybe even
educational though i doubt i'm sure
you guys uh know most of what i've said
today
and um hope you enjoy the rest of the
conference and catch you soon bye