Children from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Hunslet visited The Royal Armouries Museum today (22 November 2024) for Kids In Museums Day.
But this wasn’t a normal school trip, the pupils were there to see their own work on display, tracing particular jobs through history.
The project was part of St Joseph’s unique relationship with The Royal Armouries as a partnership school. This involves being offered trips tied in to the curriculum and training for teachers.
Children right across the school worked on the project looking at local jobs. Their work involved writing, art and geography as well as history.
Year 2 looked at work in the textiles mills. The children dressed in Victorian clothing and wrote about what it was like to work in a mill, bringing home the reality of child labour:
“I haven’t played a single game since I started at the mill, there’s no time for that.”
“I saw a girl get her dress caught in the gears once and now I tie mine as tight as I can.”
Year 5 studied the Barnbow Lasses, munitions workers in the First World War. They wrote letters home to parents describing the work and made a memorial of yellow flowers to remember the women that died in an explosion in 1916.
Other year groups studied Middleton Railway, Leeds docks and coal mining.
The project was co-ordinated by Kennedy Elwen who is the history lead in school who explained how important it is for children to learn about the history of their local area.
Nick Thomas, the Education Officer at the museum said:
“It’s amazing, we’ve worked really closely with the school to open the doors of the museum to children … and them to co-curate an exhibition like this with the museum.
“Where the work they’ve done has links with the museum’s collection we’ve brought out related objects from our handling collection to complement their displays.”
The exhibition is open to the public this weekend (23-24 November) in the News Room on the 4th floor of the museum. Then it will move to the Education Suite. Entry to the Royal Armouries Museum is free, you can find more information on their website here.
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I had the pleasure of attending this event yesterday and it was amazing to see the children from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School excited about the area’s local history.
Indeed, following this, I will be looking to see if I can commission some form of history project to recognise the industrial history of Leeds riverside around the Leeds Dock area and will be in contact with partners about this soon.
Lovely to see schools exploring their local history
Well done St. Joseph,s