Newport Primary School, Essex, UK

School shares stories at inter-generational teaparty

Historypin is a great way of bringing the generations together and involving local residents with your school. Historypin ran sessions at Newport Primary School to break down inter-generational stereotypes and encourage people to spend more time with someone from a different generation in their neighbourhood.

The Historypin team, supported by Newport Primary School teachers, worked with a group of 25 children aged 9-11, running activities based around sharing photographs and stories and supporting them to plan an event where 30 older people from local care homes and neighbourhoods were invited to the school to share their histories.

During the initial sessions Historypin facilitators used a drawing activity to explore perceptions of older people and younger people, and how negative preconceptions can be harmful. They talked about what younger and older people could learn about each other and the students agreed to go home and speak to an older person in their family or community about memories of their past, their neighborhood and old photos.

In the next session, students talked about their experiences of connecting with an older person, talking about what they found challenging and what they had gained from it. They used these experiences to design questions to ask the senior citizens they were inviting to the school such as how the neighbourhood had changed and what it was like to live during the 1940s and 1950s.

The students planned a tea party to welcome older members of the community to their school, inviting grandparents, neighbors and senior citizens from local day centres. Thirty residents came to the tea party where they shared both the stories of their lives and cupcakes baked by the students.

See some tips on how to run your own local project.