The View from Brazil

The new ring I’ve been invited to wear (not lost it yet) is made from an Amazonian palm tree. It’s a symbol of the ‘alliance with the indigenous people’s cause and the grass root’ causes.’ I’m told the ring is a sign of commitment to the cause. But I’m also warned that because of this commitment, many people have died! I try desperately to pull the thing off my finger before it’s too late. Spotted, I pretend to be scratching my finger gently and hope not too many people will notice.

Day five of my work in Reciffe, Brazil began, as always being woken at 5.00 am by the intensely bright sun sweeping into the room and sound of the sea swooshing twenty six floors below. Led by the British Council, twenty five Brazilian headteachers and five from the UK are here for a conference and school visits, building on the work that began on my first trip last June.




















The setting is impressive: palm trees colour the coast and the fresh cocoa nut juice is a delicious natural drink. Served from tree to fridge, the sellers use a lethal looking giant blade to slash the tops. I keep my ring finger well hidden during this process! A straw is inserted into the clear, cooling liquid. In temperatures of 35 degrees (I’m on three showers a day and that’s not enough) it’s refreshing, pure nectar.


The Conference days are long and intense. We have headsets for simultaneous translation- a dream. Plans and powerpoints are shared. There are some fun group activities designed by the Brazilians. One involves tying all twenty five head teachers together and seeing what happens when presents are thrown into the centre of the circle. Chaos, of course. But you’re missing the point: that is the message. We shouldn’t be surprised.

I’ve been asked to run an hour-long session on school linking. My powerpoint was sent over weeks ago for translation into Portuguese but it’s 4.30 in the afternoon so I’m going to be a maverick and do something I hadn’t planned. I direct some spontaneous role plays and mimes- stories to illustrate various educational concepts and bring them to life. It’s the old drama teacher in me- actually I’m just a failed film director. But it works and we have ear-splitting laughs and a happy group.




































To conclude I show the Top Talent DVD, a Luke Flegg/Lucy Mccance collaboration that mixes excerpts from past productions, activities and events. It’s clever stuff and the quality of the work by South Dartmoor students is a talking point.


















Pernambucco umbrellas are used to illustrate leadership concepts. That’s one the NCSL hadn’t thought of! They’re also pretty effective against the sun when we walk to lunch. Best of all the group wave them wildly at the end of a four way video conference with Mexico, Argentina and Sao Paulo. The project is being done in South America with Brazil one country among many.

The video link gives the sense of how the work is valued and its importance in the region as well as to the UK. The waving goes on until the screen fades. This is how they do things in Latin America- a joy to work with.

The Conference ends with Bom dia, the ‘Good Morning’ song, and this time I make an audio recording and translation. After everyone in the room has been hugged, we finish with the compulsory picture shoot. A professional photographer has been clicking away throughout the event.

We have small gifts of beautifully wrapped parcels of soil and packets of sunflower seeds joined by a hand of cut out green felt. We’re asked to plant the seeds as a symbol of the growth of the project and its continuing success. Will I get them through the customs, I wonder. Are they classified as a drug! What with this and the death threats to ring wearers, I could get paranoid.

The group of Brazilian directors give the UK heads illustrated cards with the words:

‘Dear Friends:
You are unique…
But, there is something especially
Charming about you:
The belief in life,
The belief in people,
The will to change the world.
Such people are never erased
From our memories.’

The Brazilian people are every bit as beautiful as their country. As I return to the hotel to try and clear my in-box before dinner, I know that I have been inspired.
P.S Lost in translation: I asked about the deadly ring today. It turns out that this is a reference to the death of the relationship symbolised by the ring and not the death of a person! I can take my hand out of my pocket now.

Top Talent

This week I approached some of the top creative and technical talent in South Dartmoor, if not the UK. You see I have a stack of DVDs with impressive recordings of quality events and performances- productions such as Starchild and Les Miserables; dance sequences from Body Language; recordings from Onside and the Futures Vision Award Ceremony.

I’m not good at juggling them around and wanted a way of selecting a medley of brief highlights to show at conferences: the best of South Dartmoor- or at least some it. I had in mind a sort of BAFTAs without the prizes- just the glitzy bits we all like to watch; like a promotional video for the next Sunday night BBC costume drama adaptation. Add in a stirring sound track of spine-tingling music, clips of confident students performing to perfection with audience ovations, smiling, polished faces, affectionate gazes and you can imagine the impact. I’m already planning the Hollywood promotion. Well why not? World class is our motto after all.

Lucy Mccance and Luke Flegg from Media came to my aid with a great offer to search through the material, load it onto the computer and edit it into a highlights promotional piece, complete with soundtrack and titles. Although this doesn’t mean the end of career for the six other staff who I thought might have helped (they know who they are because they have my begging email) I now realise who my friends are. So if they want to work again….

Of course if you want to see some stunning examples of work, just look under the subject section on the new website. Wow! The old site was described to me by someone from the DCSF (Department for cows, sheep and frogs- actually children, schools and families but easier to remember the first version) as like a Footsie 100 Index Company.

Well the new site is so impressive, we have already had requests for Nat Parnell’s head. To find out how he did it, of course. But we’re not letting him out. His whereabouts are a closely guarded secret. Actually we might be willing to exchange him on short term loan for air miles and some Tesco vouchers. In fact, he’s easy to contact- just look on the website. Lin Blackman is like an electronic decorator, wallpapering and painting the site each day in new colours and patterns. You can have any colour you like- even one mysteriously called ‘don’t like green’. What would Al Gore make of that?

The site is now the display board for the whole school- an ever-changing, uploaded interface of all that we do and beamed across the world. Candidates for posts (Psychology, Maths and Art already filled this year) speak in hushed, awed tones of what they discovered when they logged on: like entering Ali Baba’s cave and marvelling at the gemstones. The number of hits is extraordinary- 132,640 different individuals last year, each spending on average 166 seconds and viewing 4 pages. And they say Big Brother isn’t watching us! In the first week of this year there were almost 5,000 hits on the new site. Have they really nothing better to do?

Seriously, just stand and be amazed at the latest RS, Drama and ICT department sites- and all the others I have forgotten to mention, but they are just as good. Honest. Then there’s the new publication revealing John Bradford’s secret addiction to arson- but humour him when you see him and you won’t get your fingers burnt.

Look at that old Lightshifts clip again and you can see that it wasn’t pen torches at all. If you peer into the corner, I swear you can see our budding pyromaniac with a box of matches! He was playing with fire even then. So how safe is the Art Block? On second thoughts….

Those hands aflame belong to Heather Stimson and Richard Short- two of the other creative talents on the outstanding Soundbeams project. And Rachel Robinson’s musical inspiration really gets those creative juices flowing.

So by the time I get the new edited DVD, there will be another one to put together- more and more of the best of South Dartmoor. Coming to a website near you. But check out the Hollywood sites as well- ‘achieving world class standards’, after all.