Lifetime Achievement Award

You'll need: a willing accomplice to play the part of the award winner. A pupil will do, but it's funnier if you can persuade another member of staff to step in. Having a little cup or shield to hand over is a nice touch - borrow one from the school trophy cabinet. Finally, make a copy of the speech below to read out to the class.

Prime the children to raise enthusiastic applause, whooping etc when you've finished talking, then introduce your 'winner'.

We’re here today to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to someone very special:

Cath Wilson, scientific prize-winner and Olympic champion, and widely regarded as one of the finest Bond villains ever.

At just 14 she showed she was headed for stardom when she won BBC Young Musician of the Year with a version of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto which left all four judges weeping with emotion. Two years later she accepted a place at Lincoln College, Oxford, to study nuclear physics, and whilst there she won the Marie Curie prize for discovering how to stop bacon rashers from sticking to the frying pan.

Having completed her degree in less than six months – and gaining First Class Honours – she moved to Spain where she began to ski professionally, conquering every black slope in the Pyrenees and then quickly being selected for the British Olympic team. She won four gold medals for her country before a cruel injury – she tripped over her husband’s slippers - forced her to give up a brilliant sporting career.

Shropshire called her home, but not for long. A call from a casting agent meant she was soon back on our TV screens, this time in the hilarious comedy ‘That’s Not My Dog’, a cult show which won three BAFTAS and a Golden Rose at the Montreux comedy festival. A sell-out tour followed, where Cath’s fans packed theatre after theatre to watch her unique stand-up comedy style. Even a teenage Prince Harry confessed he sneaked along one night to see the show.

As her thirties approached, she gained the role that was to make her a household name: Madame Arachnid, the villain James Bond falls in love with. Indeed, her performance in The Man with the Golden Leg was so inspired that the director immediately wrote her into the next Bond film, Die Fall. Sales of merchandise from both were brisk, and a Madame Arachnid figurine can now fetch as much as $600.

Cath took time out to raise a family and teach at Criftins school where she was much-loved, but in the evenings she returned to her scientific roots, working on a cure for that thing where your glasses mist up when you open an oven door. Millions of people are now free to peer in at their Sunday roast without going temporarily blind, thanks to her. With her earnings she set up the Wilson Foundation to promote free skiing lessons for UK children.

Recently she has become known as the new Voice of the X Factor, and also as the author of the hilarious teen fiction series ‘Gilbert Baboon’. Her books have topped the bestseller charts now for three years, and the cartoon version of ‘Gilbert Baboon’ on CITV is its most popular show ever.

So tonight, Cath Wilson, we honour you with this Lifetime Achievement Award, and say thank you for everything you’ve contributed to the world. Please step forward and take your cup.

(Cue wild applause.)

      Explain to the children that they are going to write their own speeches, either about themselves or a friend. They need to imagine the kind of glories they'd like to achieve in life and then go as fantastical as they like. List some arenas in which they might excel, and list them on the board, e.g.

TV/theatre/film

books

sports

charity

science/medicine

music/art/dance

cookery

adventure/endurance/bravery

The students in my writing club found it helpful to divide their page up into decades: My 20s, My 30s, My 40s etc.

At the end of the session, the children who want to can deliver their speeches while the others clap.