BBC presenter Iain Stewart to host prize-giving event

BBC presenter and University of Plymouth geoscientist Professor Iain Stewart will be hosting a special prize-giving event with children from schools across the country as part of a national census initiative. Professor Stewart, currently on national television screens with BBC2 programme Men of Rock will present Netbooks to four ‘Champion Schools’ who have acted as standard bearers for the CensusAtSchool project. The Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education (RSSCSE), based at the University, is running CensusAtSchool (www.censusatschool.org.uk), on behalf of the Office for National Statistics, as an awareness raiser for the 2011 UK Census on 27 March. They have recruited over 40 Champion Schools from across England and Wales, who in turn are working to encourage neighbouring schools to take part, offering to mentor them. The RSSCSE has run the CensusAtSchool project for the past ten years and has unearthed a number of insights during the current project. According to the survey, both children and parents agree that physical education is the most popular subject at school. But when it comes to Maths and English, children rank them seventh and eighth, while parents have them second and third respectively! The RSSCSE is awarding the Netbooks as prizes to those who have best promoted the project in their own school and neighbouring institutions.