History in the City visit to Tapton School, written by Grace Carver, HinC committee member
On Monday 15th May, HinC went to visit Tapton School’s lunchtime history club to run a Hands on History session with them. To say it was a success was an understatement! It really felt as if the pupils were properly engaged with what we had to say, despite having to shift the time of the club to afterschool! We had a whole new lesson plan, all based around the idea that young people have played a prominent part throughout History, just as much as great figures in History that the curriculum tends to focus on. The objects that we went with included two Cindy dolls, a Yorkshire miner’s strike badge, a ‘Girls are Powerful’ book, and a NUSS (National Union of School Students) badge.
The pupils were really engaging with the conversation, applying the discussion of political and historical action to their own lives. From a volunteer perspective, I felt that it was useful that we all had the common ground of being young people, allowing us to work with the pupils in a new and exciting way. It was also extremely interesting to hear what the pupils had to say about the current world and how this applies to them. Likewise, it was exciting to have a new lesson plan that was focused on introducing the pupils to the practice of social history and the idea that history can be driven from below.