Setting aside the matter of Educational Authorities who cannot think (!), I also agree that you might like to give this another go in order to allow the Authority to think again.
There is another type of dial you might try on them – one that can also be painted on the ground and where the person standing on it casts the shadow in a similar way to an analemmatic dial. This is the human nodus horizontal dial where the dial is a conventional (though large) horizontal dial and the person stands on the noon line at a point on a scale of heights such that the top of their head is at the same height as a real gnomon would be. These are strangely rare (at least in the UK) with only a few known. John Moir’s one at Poplar in London is a recent example (see the blurred image attached – I can email a better image) and it’s hard to see how any thinking person could object to something like this for children. Not only that but its operation is much easier to explain and to compare with conventional horizontal dials and also of course, given the solar time it can be used to determine the child’s height – something which they find fun. Patrick
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