Teach Secondary 14.4

ExitStageDeath (AvaEldred,UCLanPublishing,£8.99) Timeless ‘coming of age’ concerns, emotional intensity, some smart metatextual commentary on the acting tradition and the nature of fame, social media critiques and a compelling ‘whodunnit’ to unravel – it’s all here in this exuberant YAnovel. An establishedwriter and producer of stagemusicals, Eldred’s expertise is verymuch in evidence throughout Exit Stage Death ’s frequent switching between first-person prose and passages presented as actor’s scripts.That might sound gimmicky, but it gives depth to our teenage narrator – aspiring actor Livi Campbell, preparing to attend her last summer at the Camp Chance performing arts retreat – with the script style elegantly conveying the tendency ofmany a theatre kid towards flights of fancy and seeing themselves as themain players in their own drama. But things take a distinctly darker turn after a fellowCamp Chance attendee is found to have died undermysterious circumstances... Between its likeable cast of supporting characters – son of Hollywood acting royaltyAaron, charismatic Camp Chance first-timer Daisy, self-doubting social media success storyJuliet – and numerous knowing references to the likes of Wicked , Heathers and AChorus Line , it’s a heady stew that any fan ofmurder mysteries and/ormusical theatre will verymuch enjoy. Youbeganwritingthebook in2014– so it’s beensomethingofaslowburn? I’d alwayswritten – pantomimes for a local am dramgroup,humorous poems to amuse friends,but nothing that was ever published. I decided to take a correspondence course, and one of the taskswas to plan a novel. I don’t knowwhere the ideas came from,but I managed to create a storyoutline forwhat wouldbecome the book and continued working on it over the next fewyears. I moved away from it for a bit towrite a bookon behaviour forCrownHouse (2023’s That BehaviourBook ),but eventuallycame back to it anddeveloped the ideas further into a finished novel. Thebook’s satirical intent is fairlyclear–was that always theplan? It’smeant to be funny. It does tackle some important issues,butmymajormotivation wasn’t to angrily settle some scores – ‘ I’m going to tell theworldwhat I think! ’ I wanted to make people laugh bywriting about what I know,which is education. Somyprimemotivationwas to entertain, but particularly in light of recent events, I couldn’t tackle the topic ofOfsted inspections without also addressing some of the feelings that process prompts in school staff, and the manypressures it can place upon teachers and headteachers. Towhat extent arebook’scharactersand eventsbasedonyour real lifeexperiences? The inspiration for the story’s headteacher, HarryFlanagan, came froma 1987TVseries called HardwickeHouse that was so bad it got cancelled after just several episodes.There was this bumbling, inept, slightlyoverweight and rosy-cheeked character playedbyRoy Kinnear.That waswho I had inmind. Therewas some real world inspiration behind [ SeniorOfsted inspector ] ArthurNally, though,who’s based on somebody I encountered inmycareerwho I thought was just a tad self-important... Is thereanythingelseyouhope readers take awaywiththemwhentheyreadthebook? There’s an element ofwanting people outside teaching to understandwhat it’s really like.You hear people complaining about the holidays teachers get,but until you’ve tried it,you just don’t know.At school,we had these off- timetable days,where people fromvarious employment sectorswould give careers talks to the kids, and thisArmed Forces guyonce came in,dressed in camouflage and carrying a dinghy.Atmorning break,he staggered over to me, asking“ Howdo you do this...? ” SteveBaker isa freelanceeducation consultant,currentlysupportingacademies in Yorkshire,BirminghamandNorthWales ON THE RADAR Meet the author STEVE BAKER TheGameChangers (TimClare.Canongate,£26.99) Despite the relative paucity of immediately obvious National Curriculum links, teachers will find several of sections of this book to be highly engaging. First, there’s the veritable plethora of different games,many of which will likely be unfamiliar to the general reader. Secondly, there’s the range of uses to which said games can be put – including divination,making judgements and, naturally, plain old enjoyment. Finally, there’s the learning to be had from exploring the sometimes disagreeable history of said games.More broadly, the book tells a historical story of (usually) friendly rivalries, productive co-operation and shrewd strategies, providing plenty of potentially useful material for PSHE classroomdiscussions and introductions to economics.Who knows – reading about the variety of games heremay even encourage the invention of a fewmore newer ones... ReviewedbyTerry Freedman Outstanding (SteveBaker,£12,Simon&Schuster) Baker’s CV includes a stint as an English teacher, before going on to advise local authorities onmatters relating to behaviour and attendance.Those bona fides are on full display in the narration and characters of Outstanding – a comedic novel that follows the events surrounding an increasingly chaotic Ofsted school inspection.We’re verymuch in ‘satirical farce’ territory here, andwhile there are some pointed digs at the regulator’s values andmodus operandi – and an unflinching portrayal of battered and exhausted school leadership in the formof hapless headteacher Harry Flanagan – there’s less anger and fewer didacticmonologues than youmight expect.What you do get is a pacey, entertaining readwith some enjoyably bonkers plotting and carefully deployed pathos,which one suspects will resonate a great deal with any teacher who’s ever had to struggle through a lesson before the watchful eyes of an HMI... 39 teachwire.net/secondary B O O K R E V I E WS