- 01298 79648
- 07530 457755
Discover Buxton, discover the BEST in educational experiences:
We have been successfully offering bespoke services to schools in Buxton and district for several years.
The National Curriculum history programme from stages 1 to 4 has the purpose of enabling young people to develop a coherent understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world, inspiring a desire to know more.
We note especially the importance of:
We offer competitive prices where our characters come to YOU. We can also go beyond the classroom to offer local history trips on your doorstep!
The town of Buxton offers much for schools to enjoy and our company is able to bring the stories alive. Our costumed characters offer the experience of seeing Buxton through the eyes of people who have made a significant contribution to the history of the town such as Robert Rippon Duke (creator of Victorian Buxton); Mary Queen of Scots (Elizabethan monarch); Vera Brittain (from Edwardian student to WW1 nurse), Anna Seward (an important Georgian visitor to the Crescent) or Anne Lister (another Georgian visitor to the Crescent). We love bringing hidden history alive and challenging stereotypes.
Each of these characters can either provide walks through the town, using authenticity of place, or bring their characters alive in your classroom. This is often a useful starting point for an introduction to different eras and we can work with schools to create exactly the right emphasis.
We have a team of local history enthusiasts and are confident we can offer experiences which assist you to achieve the attainment targets you seek for your students. Many of our team are ex teachers and/or currently serving teachers with many years of experience across age groups and disciplines. Please phone 01298 79648 or email and we will be happy to discuss ideas with you and design a bespoke package especially for your needs.
There are many potential themes in the town which offer a useful focus for a historical study, walks and talks in the locality such as railways, medicine, spa and empire, wartime, theatre, Peakland geology or hidden histories, such as women, the working classes and LGBTQ+. We can also help with themes of local history studies such as change over time and impact.
There are also a range of formats which offer a way of addressing such themes. Imagine, for example, a group of schoolchildren ‘on holiday’ in Victorian Buxton. Where would they go? What attractions would they see? How would their class or gender impact on their holiday? They could perhaps post cards home in the town’s Victorian post-box to let people at home know what they are doing.
We visited a local junior school and gave an illustrated talk about Victorian Buxton with slides showing Victorian images to illustrate important localities. We were joined by one of our Victorian character guides, Mr Robert Rippon Duke in full costume, who was most bemused to find himself in the modern day!! It became important then for the pupils to become heritage detectives and locate the places and explain to Mr Robert Rippon Duke what they looked like now.We also provided a time line to compare what was happening in the wider world with what was happening in a small town. The next day groups were led through the town with the aim that the children (many in costume) would be equipped to take their own parents/ carers on a guided tour of their own. The children held up the Victorian pictures in the modern day settings and were able to compare and contrast what they saw. The children followed up the tour by writing about what they had learned of Victorian Buxton.
We attended a local secondary school and offered an illustrated talk on one of the significant buildings in the town in this case The Crescent. This was followed by a guided tour of the town explaining the significance of the Crescent to the town. In line with requirements of the GCSE curriculum we addressed topics such as how the site has changed dramatically over its history and how we know the site was important to people at a particular time in its history. We particularly looked at the diversity of this era and the type of guests who would have been frequenting the site.We assisted students to create an image of the building both interior and exterior when it was originally built and then brought the types of people staying there alive. They were able to both compare and contrast with other similar sites such as Bath.
In partnership with Discover Buxton, Whitworks Adventures in Theatre (WAT) is a small Sheffield-based company that uses Drama, Theatre and Creative Writing to work with schools and communities.
WAT brings history and heritage to life so that children, young people and communities can engage positively, having access to knowledge and experiences that will inspire them.
On a practical level this can mean:
Visit http://watheatre.co/index.html to find out WAT’s community projects and publications.
WAT also offers Drama History days with a focus on diverse and forgotten histories. Here are a few examples: Ancient Greece through the story of Cynisca, Women’s Rights, WW1 and WW2.
To find out more, visit https://whitworks.co.uk/bringing-history-to-life.html
WAT’s work is carefully designed to fit the school or community they are working with always promoting inclusion and diversity.
