Cheryl Cole named as top role model for children

Cheryl Cole named as top role model for children
Cheryl Cole named as top role model for children (Image credit: EMPICS)

X Factor judge Cheryl Cole has been named as a top role model for Britain's kids. The Girls Aloud star was rated as a positive influence by 40 percent of participants in a survey, coming second only to David Beckham who was favoured by 55 percent asked. However, the survey found that children are less likely to look up to adults than in the past and almost two thirds of those asked felt that children do not have appropriate role models. Director of The Children's Society's National Mentoring Initiative, Rashid Iqbal, said: "This poll reflects our concerns that many children are living without positive role models. "If children are not looking up to adults this is not the children's fault. Both parents and society at large have a responsibility to enact a change of heart in our society and actually live by the values that they espouse and be strong and positive role models, providing continuity and support to a child or young person's life." Homer Simpson was voted the worst role model by the 2006 people involved with the survey.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.