Romana swaps Blue Peter fame for chalk face

FORMER Blue Peter presenter Romana D'Annunzio yesterday said she was swapping the TV studio for the classroom.

Miss D'Annunzio, who presented the BBC show in the late 90s, is to start a career as a secondary school teacher after graduating from Glasgow University.

The 37-year-old, from Edinburgh, said she was "delighted". She decided to become a teacher while teaching English to teenagers in Rome for a year.

She said: "It was there I was bitten by the teaching bug. There were a number of times when I was in the front of a class, that I thought, 'This isn't so unlike presenting Blue Peter'."

Miss D'Annunzio joined Blue Peter in 1996 and was only the second Scot to present the children's show.

She got the job after meeting Lewis Bronze, the programme's then editor, at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

D'Annunzio made her final Blue Peter appearance in 1998 to try acting. Her roles since then have included Aladdin.