Ripley pupils Facing the Past

Amy Todd, Young People’s Creative Consultation Facilitator spoke about how the project was developing after the research stage and how young people have impacted and impressed upon the stakeholders. She explained that new research has been commissioned by the Priory focussing on the slave trade in Lancaster and how the project worked with both primary and secondary schools and the wider community on live performances. Our school’s experiences over the past 6 weeks has involved meeting and debating the topic with a variety of artists/eminent historians/activists to hear their perspectives, discussing what is meant by history and the past, to learn about and be able to reflect on the impact of the Lancaster Slave trade and use historical sources such as museum visits, trails and collections, archives, websites and academic discussions.

All pupils from Ripley, Central High and Lancaster Royal Grammar School spoke confidently about their experiences and the emotions that emerged whilst learning about the lives of enslaved Africans in Lancaster. We were particularly impressed by our Year 8 pupils Lauren Pritchard and Maddie Wain who, under their own initiative, reflected on their experiences by writing some beautifully insightful poems and bravely performing on stage in front of everyone.

Each and every pupil/student who presented from all schools put their heart and soul into presenting and this continued into their focus groups with stakeholders after the presentation.

We would like to thank all involved, in particular Louise Gibbons and Amy Todd as Young Peoples Creative Consultation Facilitators and Kit Abramson, Programme Director from Lancaster Priory. All facilitators brought their own specialism, be that teaching cultural dance and movement or history (art or local history). Our pupils have thrived on the knowledge and been given some amazing creative space to flourish and learn with the opportunity to access some amazing resources and archives through Facing the Past and Miss Mwale’s links on firefly.

On  25 April we were able to  meet Louise for a feedback session on  the project.  Here are some of the responses:

What was your favourite part of the project?

“I liked Week 3, the online  talk with Grizelda Pollock. She described things in a way that I could visualise if I was in that situation.” MADDIE

“I preferred the Quayside Tour and  the  archive session as it was interesting to see how the local area linked with the past” JULIA

“My favourite part was the tour around the Judges Lodgings and   Leila’s artwork – the fact that she  imagined how the enslaved people would look  without any pictures to look at was amazing” LAUREN

What was the most important thing you learnt in the process?

“How many statues of slave traders exist without the historical information being made available to show the part they played in enslaving people yet we saw very few memorials  to the enslaved Africans themselves. ” POPPY

“I wanted to be able to help towards raising the number of memorials and that’s what motivated me to  keep coming to the sessions” JULIA

How can we improve if we do it again?

“I would have loved to maybe do a workshop with the artist (Leila) to make what they make” MADDIE

Would you recommend this programme to other schools?

“Absolutely! there was so much to have gained from taking part – it made me aware of many buildings in Lancaster and changed my way of viewing the areas” POPPY

“From a teacher perspective this was so good that it was cross-curricular, covering elements of History, RE, Art and  English (as shown by Maddie and Lauren’s poems). The pace and delivery was very varied, each week there was a different focus be it visits, walking tours around town, formal guest speaker presentations, artists and expert debate.” MRS HANLEY

https://ripley.fireflycloud.net/religious-studies/facing-the-past

and Facing the Past archive map

https://www.facingthepast.org/map