Last Friday night was the Headteacher’s Quiz Night, an evening that gives parents the chance to pit their wits against one another in a challenge testing our community’s general knowledge, memory and overall intelligence. As ever, the stakes were high, with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange up for grabs and the pressure of avoiding the ritual humiliation of walking home with a losers’ potato. At Highgate Primary we say that children learn best through positive messages, but in my experience, avoiding embarrassment is every bit as motivating.

With eight rounds of ten questions, things opened up with a round of general knowledge. The secret for doing well at the Headteacher’s quiz is fairly simple. You don’t need to know very much, just know the same things as I do – so being of a similar vintage, liking dogs and cricket, and supporting Tottenham Hotspur are a definite advantage.

The first round was rather shambolic as the quizmaster had clearly confused himself with how many hearts an Octopus has. The answer was given as four, although most teams decided it was eight (one for each tentacle?), when in actual fact it was three. The question, ‘What dog is this?’ was especially difficult as the picture of a saluki had vanished. A desperate attempt to describe what it looked like – fast and hairy – didn’t make it much easier, so the question was abandoned. Any mildly abusive heckling was probably justified on this occasion.

A bit of control was retained in the second round as the contestants’ TV knowledge was scrutinised. ‘Which actors played the super-couple Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell?’ was testing, but identifying The Anthill Mob’s car as ‘The Bulletproof Bomb’ definitely left a few teams rather baffled.

The cheese round was well received, as the teams’ taste buds were put to the test. Most teams scored pretty well, with several quizzers correctly identifying the rather expensive pecorino with truffle. The highest scoring round was ‘celebrity spotting in Highgate’, including Mesut Ozil captured with pizza in Zizzi’s, Kate Moss in the pooch parlour, ‘Hair of the Dog’ and Jude Law parking up outside The Flask. The highlight however was the music round, featuring saxophone riffs and solos performed by our very own Dr Sax – and yes, he is a real doctor.

Events were concluded with the last question of the night, ‘What cocktail would you be drinking if you were drinking vodka, tequila, light rum, triple sec, gin and splash of cola?’ Unfortunately this wasn’t a hypothetical question for one team of parents, who started the quiz well but faded a little as the evening progressed.

At the end of the evening, and for the third year running, the overall winners were ‘The Famous Five’, who at this moment are probably at home enjoying their Chocolate Oranges, basking in the knowledge that they know the four flavours of Angel Delight.

Thank you to everyone who came along – it was fun!

William