RSS Schools Lecture (Guy Lecture)

The RSS Schools Lecture has evolved from the former Guy Lecture. A lecturer (known as the Guy Lecturer) is appointed each year and prepares a lecture aimed at sixth form and GCSE students that draws out the importance and widespread applicability of statistics in a serious but accessible and entertaining way. The official delivery of the lecture takes place at a school once in the year, and it is available for repeat deliveries at any other schools that request it. There is no charge for this service.

CURRENT LECTURE

Measuring Inequality
Stella Dudzic
MEI Programme Leader for Curriculum

In 2012, the final report of the Riots, Communities and Victims panel said that “over half of respondents to the Panel’s Neighbourhood Survey believe there is a growing gap between rich and poor in their local area.” 
 
How can inequality be measured?  Is inequality growing?  How does the UK compare to other countries?  Stella’s talk will look at how statistics can be used to help answer these questions. This will include consideration of how to compare data from different countries and different times in a standard way that makes it easier to see what is going on.
 

Interested in hosting a Guy Lecture at your school?

If you would like to arrange to have an RSS Schools Lecture at your school/college or as an outreach activity at your university, please contact:

Sarah Barker
Email: s.barker@rss.org.uk
Tel: 020 7614 3915

In addition to this year's lecture, past lecturers who are still able to consider invitations to talk are:

Peter Holmes 'Statistics in Society' - 2003
Frank Duckworth 'Lies and Statistics' - 2004
Dr John Haigh 'Taking Chances' - 2005
Dr Susan Starkings 'Can you see the wood for the trees?: surveys, sampling, estimation and approximation' - 2006
Neil Sheldon 'Statistics and Stories: insight not numbers' - 2007
Phil Woodward 'Experimental Design' - 2008
Keith Parramore 'The bottle factory - order from chaos' - 2009
Paul Baxter 'Are large databases good for your health?' - 2011

We hope that host schools can accommodate students from other nearby schools. We can help you, if you wish, with creating a "flyer", drawing up a guest list, sending out invitations and, where appropriate, generating local press interest. We know, of course, that many schools already have good local links or are keen to develop them.

History of the Guy Lecturer

William Augustus Guy (1810-1885) was one of the early medical statisticians. He was extremely eminent in the field. He was closely associated with the Society for very many years, including being president 1873-1875. His portrait hangs at the rear of the lecture theatre at the Society's headquarters. The Guy medals, awarded periodically to distinguished statisticians for important work, testify to his memory. A more recent innovation is the Guy Lecture.

One of the Society's former honorary secretaries, Sidney Rosenbaum, discovered that Guy was a pupil at his old school, Christ's Hospital, now located near Horsham. Sidney arranged discussions that led to the setting up of a Guy Lecture sponsored by the Society and held at the school, aimed at sixth-form students. The first Guy Lecture was given by Adrian Smith on 29 April 1999, the title being "Statistics and statisticians: the good guy's answer to lying figures and figuring liars". The second Lecture was given by Adrian Bowman on 19 May 2000, with the title "A world of difference: a rough guide to why statisticians count".

Many repeats of Adrian Bowman's lecture were given to other sixth form audiences. This encouraged the Society to widen the scope of the Guy Lecture so that it became the RSS Schools Lecture which is available to any school or college in the country. However, the title Guy Lecturer was retained for each year's lecturer.