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Rosemary Collins discovers how an infant school in Kent engendered a love of local history in its children
How a school in Kent inspired its pupils to love history
The staff of Priory Infant School in Ramsgate believe that children are never too young to learn local history. As part of Historic England’s Heritage Schools Programme, the school formed a ‘Time Detectives’ club, who teamed up with the Ramsgate’s Remarkable Residents project to research the history of a local street. Deputy head teacher Vivienne Botting explains how the project changed the way that the children saw their town.
What Did You Do In The Project?
We decided to research Guildford Lawn, an early Victorian crescent. It was built in 1842, and there are 19 terraced houses. Over the course of 10 weeks we had an afterschool club with eight children from Year 2.
We met in the local library, and found out about every resident that we possibly could. Children were taught how to use microfilm readers to look at old newspapers, as well as how to access ancestry.co.uk on the library computers. A local historian brought in lots and lots of artefacts for children to look at and explore, which made it very real. We examined old maps, and historical documents. We also walked round Guildford Lawn with an expert from the Ramsgate Society, who explained what life would have been like in 1842.
Every week the children gradually built up more information, and at the end of the project we put on a huge exhibition showing what they had learned. We invited everybody who had been involved – all the residents, and the children’s parents – and the children presented their discoveries.
‘The children loved being detectives, out’ investigating and finding things
What Did You Learn About The Residents?
The main thing we wanted to show the children was that everybody is remarkable in their own way; history isn’t just about the famous people who make the headlines. So there was a lady who was a dressmaker, there was a gunmaker somewhere else, and there was a greengrocer and a butcher whose son died in the First World War. There was one lady in particular, Emma Minter, who travelled to France, Mauritius and Australia. She had all sorts of incredible adventures, and the children loved finding out about them – and that she was a strong woman.
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Helen Spencer, the local heritage education manager at Historic England who initiated the project, made the point that these are children who in 10 years’ time could be leaving graffiti all over the town – or they could instead be telling their peers to have some pride in it, and look after it. We’re trying to engender that. It was a really positive thing, and the children absolutely loved being detectives, investigating and finding things out. It was a collaborative affair, and at the end the project received a Heritage Schools Award from Historic England.
Another nice thing is that the project has awakened a general interest in history. So the children started saying, “I’m going to see my great uncle – he was in the Second World War and he’ll tell me all about it.” People worry that children at infant school are too young to learn about history, but I think we clearly proved that this isn’t the case.