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Century of Change.
Sherwood Forest is a defining feature of Nottinghamshire. It’s an ancient forest with a distinctive landscape, important habitats and a rich heritage recognised and valued by local people as well as visitors from around the world. Miner2Major was a five-year Landscape Partnership Project, supported by National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Play Video about Sherwood Forest
The challenge.
Miner2Major focused on the Forest’s complex and fascinating history and how it has evolved and changed to match the needs of the communities that have lived and worked there for centuries. Innovate Educate Ltd working with Creative Learning Partnerships won a competitive tender to create a Key Stage 2 Local History Programme that celebrates this history. This developed into Century of Change.
Our role.
We developed rich teaching and learning resources for Nottinghamshire primary schools based in and around the area that was covered by the former Sherwood Forest Hunting Ground, from Ollerton to Bestwood, Mansfield to Newark.
Skillset.
- Establishing a steering group
- Research into local curricula
- Engagement of local heritage venues and experts
- Engagement of local schools
- Design of a rich learning programme
- Collaboration with: academics, artists, authors, children, families, heritage venues, local community, project partners, project team, teachers
- Writing and producing a learning programme that became the scaffold for a local curriculum focusing, largely, on the Century of Change from 1850 to 1950
What we delivered.
We successfully engaged 43 schools in the programme. Our target was 15.
- Designed and produced the learning resources, working alongside heritage venues and teachers.
- Engaged artists to work with schools to bring history to life
- Delivered CPD events for heritage venues and teachers
- Produced two celebration events at Mansfield Palace Theatre where children shared their learning through dance and drama. Truly magical events.
The programme used a different heritage learning technique for each theme.
- Objects provided the way into mining heritage
- Parish records unlocked the story of mills in the area,
- Testimony brought the history of the Second World War to life
- Ballads and local stories enlivened teaching around land use.
What happened.
Originally we were tasked with creating five resources on Mills, Mines Impact of War, Gardens and Transport. Research showed that the story of the forest was better told as a timeline from Mills, to Mines, to Impact of war, with a focus on land use. This project started during the COVID 19 pandemic where children were feeling powerless, so we included a unit based on model villages where children could design their future communities. This approach means we now have a fully resourced local curriculum that teachers can use to with confidence to engage children with their history.
We were tasked with engaging with 15 local schools but by working collaboratively we were able to engage 24 schools reaching over 1000 pupils.
When we started the project, we asked children to tell us about their local history. Universally, children focused on Robin Hood. Now children have a much better understanding of the history that shaped their communities.
‘Normally when we learn about stuff, it’s about somewhere far away. This was here. They were talking about somewhere we’d been and we’d seen.’
