When you see children folding too quickly, not holding the paper properly and not making proper creases, it’s easy to assume this is all you can expect. Yet some individuals clearly have a gift for precision and “get” a model very quickly. With these students, I introduce another challenge, that of scale.

We divide a large square into quarters, I cut it with my magic cutter (alias an “envelopener”) and challenge them to make it from that sized paper. When they succeed (as they inevitably do), I repeat the process. Just when they think they are really going places, I rustle up a relatively tiny one to show what can be done. Cue dropped jaws and “woooooooahr – how d’you do that!”

Now and again, a student will rise to the challenge, as shown in the photo – mine is the larger of the two examples! The model is the trad “bench”, a highly flexible and useful design to teach.