Adderley Heritage Project in collaboration with Keele University
Adderley History and Heritage community project 2023
Summer 2023 saw the launch of an exciting new project here at Adderley! Following a successful £47K Heritage Lottery Fund bid from the Adderley Hisory and Heritage Community Project the school in conjunction with Keele University will embark upon a three year project to support this exciting Community endeavour. The funding will enable the collection of material that already exists to be digitised and shared through the Shropshire Archives, and it is expected that more material will be discovered and added as the project develops! Alongside this, and importantly for the school, the project aims to co-ordinate work between the people of Adderley, our Primary School, Shropshire Archives, and others to document and reveal aspects of the village’s history and heritage.
The project idea, which grew out of conversations with villagers after one gentleman who had already started collating documents and photographs relating to Adderley’s history wanted his collection to be saved for others to enjoy. We are so pleased that he did!
Our role in the porject will include the development or Curriculum Materials that can be used to teach our Primary History Curriculum in a way which is both engaging and context driven. Working closely alongside us to develop Curriculum Materials is Dr. Siobhan Talbott who will be adding her research expertise. Siobhan, who is from the History programme at Keele University also has a British Academy Fellowship for this academic year, of which part of her work is to create with schools, teaching materials much along the same lines.Siobhan will work with teaching staff at the school to develop teaching materials exploring Adderley’s History and community.
Alongside this the school plans to play an integral role in the establishment of a heritage trail. Signage placed around the village is planned with the route passing through Adderley's school car park. So too is an oral history project, gathering contemporary thoughts about Adderley from people within our school that will help inform future generations about life in the village.
As opportunities go this is incredible and we are all immmensely proud and excited to not only be working closely alongside Siobhan, who will be adding her research expertise, but also to being able to develop teaching materials which will then be available Nationally for use by other schools and adpatable by regiions across the Nation to meet specific needs and available for years to come.
The school will play an important role in the planning and creation of learning resources for children that not only align with our rich and interesting historical context but also with the knowledge and Skills requirements as outlined in the National Curriculum. The idea is to put this into the history curriculum so that the children can be involved in learning about their heritage.
If you would like to hear more about the reserch proposal please visit Keele Uniiversity's Sound Cloud page Stream episode Keele historian to support Shropshire community heritage project by Keele University podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud. Alternativey vsiti the Adderley Heritage Website by clicking this link. Updates from the school will be found here regualrly!