We are proud to continue our association wih local Sussex schools. We have to credit Rowlie Darby of Patcham High with starting all this off we think. We knew him around the time we filmed the big dalek scenes in Hove for our later episodes. He appeared as one of the daleks in 2004 and in fact later went with a troup of youngsters – and James Precious – to see the first Portsmouth play “The Evil of the Daleks” in 2006. Contact endured, and a couple of daleks were despatched to Patcham and inhabited the school library for a number of teams, occasionally coming out for the Brighton Modelworld show and popping back again. The daleks spend a fruitful time there encouraging youngsters to read science fiction.
Things led on from there – Thomas A Becket school also had a couple of daleks for a few terms, and indeed their arrival was announced at a surprise assembly where a number of the youngsters in Dr Who costumes invaded their full school assembly one morning and warning about a dalek attack. Then of course, with suitable music, three daleks then appeared bith on stage and in through the side doors much to the delight and astonighment of the kids! A trio of teachers volunteered to pilot the daleks for the event.
One of the teachers David also worked with some classes of kids to build their own dalek models, and Ashley’s Brighton ModelWorld stand that year had a whole section devoted to their excellent modelwork.
The daleks were at the school for over a year to great success. Recently last year the daleks were at a Southwick primary school, and Shoreham Academy has recently (2015) had one for a term – again in the library (above).
Back in 2014 a couple of schools hosted a dalek – above is a great shot of one outside Bolney School in mid-Sussex.
There’s even been a few daleks invading a teacher conference in Horsham – no photos unfortunately! And of course, as these are school visits, we can’t really include photos here as you can imagine. However here’s a few we can show…