The series of pictures with David wearing his white Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt with the moose on it are widely posted but did you know they came from an appearance he made at the Ashmount School summer fair in 2006?
This article published in TES Newspaper on December 8, 2006 written By: Hannah Frank interviews Arabella Weir and talks about the school and David's appearance:
It pays to have A-list parents
How Arabella Weir, The Fast Show star, helped turn failure into success for her children's school. Hannah Frankel reports
Arabella Weir does not really mind whether her bum looks big perched on a child's chair. She'd rather her local primary school continued to thrive.
And if that means using her famous catchphrase to draw attention to the school's achievements, then so be it. Author and star of The Fast Show, Arabella (pictured, left) has been co-chair of the Parent Teacher Association at Ashmount Primary School in Highgate, north London, for six years.
But it was not until the school went into serious weaknesses in March 2003 that her support was truly needed - and tested. "The minute we went into serious weaknesses, parents started taking their children out of the school," says Arabella, who has two youngsters at the primary.
"In my daughter's class of 25, 11 upped and went almost immediately. It was a classic example of middle-class hysteria."
"There's this awful middle-class fantasy that poor children will somehow drag your brilliant kids down," she adds. "They complain endlessly about how hopeless their local school is, without realising that they need to invest in it themselves if it is to improve. It enrages me that they don't do anything and still complain that it's not good enough."
While some state schools struggle to get a handful of ordinary people on to the PTA, others have access to some extraordinarily well-connected parents.
Plenty of the rich and famous choose state schools for their children, and their support is incalculable. But most of them decide to keep their heads below the parapet, so you never know what they contribute. In Arabella's case, her public profile has given a struggling school the help it needed to aid its recovery.
Ashmount is positioned between wealthy Highgate, a coveted conservation area, and a deprived housing estate. As such, it is a diverse school where 32 different languages are spoken. Other schools in the area are often labelled as either "worthy" or "undesirable" by well-heeled parents - something which all too often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In Ashmount's case, the school came out of serious weaknesses after just a year and a half, thanks in part to Pana McGee, its dynamic new head. She has made parental commitment a priority to the recovery plan, and mums and dads are encouraged to come into the school to either help with the pupils'
reading programme or share their professional or personal experiences. But she also understands how useful celebrity endorsements can be.
"Arabella is newsworthy. She's the currency and she can use her status and contacts to access a wider audience," says Pana. "But it's up to us to ensure that we deliver on our promises."
Thanks to Arabella's connections, Doctor Who star David Tennant attended a school fair this summer, helping to raise £7,000 in signed photographs and autographs. The school has also had Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, and Jon Snow, the Channel 4 newsreader, in to help raise pupil aspirations.
Ashmount is not the only school in north-west London - infamous heartland of the chattering classes - to harness the power of celebrity. Canonbury Primary in Islington has the dubious honour of not one but two education ministers as school parents: Andrew Adonis, the Schools Minister, and Boris Johnson, the Shadow Minister for Higher Education. At the school's Auction of Promises this year, prizes included a guided tour round the House of Lords with Lord Adonis, which Mr Johnson won for £5,000. A private home concert from Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, went for the same amount - the band's business manager, Paul Makin, is also a parent at Canonbury. In all, the school raised £43,000 from a single evening.
"We do have a lot of parents with connections here in Islington," says Canonbury's head, Jay Henderson. "We have some parents living in £5 million houses and others in cramped, two-bedroom council flats - it makes for a great mixed environment.
"We encourage all our parents to air their views and opinions as part of our Parent Link initiative and our PTA."
Even schools without access to such influential celebrities can raise large sums of money. Last year, £73 million was raised nationwide by PTAs - an increase of 10 per cent on the previous year.
Arabella says: "I'm well aware that I have the time and contacts which can be helpful to a school, but anyone can make a difference. You don't have to change the world, but you do have to do tiny gestures, like make a cake once a year and try to sell it"