Local science teacher meets idol, Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock after student letter

A Leicestershire schoolteacher has met her hero, Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock after her student wrote a letter to University of Leicester.

Eleven-year-old, Philippa Hird, sent a letter to University of Leicester asking for a signed photograph of Dame Maggie for her teacher, Sara Green.

Dame Maggie, who is Chancellor of University of Leicester, then surprised both Phillipa and Sara Green by sending a video message, which was played in an end-of-year assembly, inviting them both to meet her.

Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock is best known for her work on The Sky at Night and joined University of Leicester in 2023.

More information about Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock can be found here.

Philippa and Sara, who came from Leicester Grammar Junior School, met with Dame Maggie backstage after one of University of Leicester’s graduation ceremonies at De Montfort Hall (Thursday, 18 July).

After the meeting, Philippa said: “I decided to write a letter to Dame Maggie because my teacher Mrs Green, I am leaving her next year to go to senior school, and I thought it would be a great experience to meet her idol and someone that she loves.

“I wrote the letter thinking that I was only going to get a signed photo and I only knew a day before the assembly that I was actually going to see Maggie and I thought, ‘Mrs Green is going to be starstruck!’.

“I talked about it in assembly and we watched the video that she sent us and now we are here!”

Sara Green said: “This has been the most amazing afternoon! Philippa, who I teach for science, completely unbeknownst to me, had written this amazing letter telling Maggie how I loved her to the moon and back.

“I’ve watched her on TV and I think that she is an amazing science communicator and she just seemed really lovely.

“In assembly on the last day, there was a letter being read out. There was this amazing video from Maggie saying that she would love to meet me and that she was really impressed with me that I had inspired Phillipa to write a letter.

“So she invited us here today and this had been just amazing to see her firstly on that screen and then for her to come and sit next to me, to chat and to listen to my waffle and to sign my book. It was just fabulous.”