Heritage Programme

Helping young people understand their past and the heritage of their community helps them put their own lives into a social context. Our Heritage Programme provides young people with an invaluable insight into their community. In helping them develop a greater appreciation of their past, they develop a greater understanding of their future.

Our approach

We use the Heritage Programme as a way of building the self-esteem and key skills in young people at a key point of transition in their lives. It provides young people with an opportunity to grow in confidence and directly contribute to the preservation of their local community’s heritage. We also include a cultural outing, where the children take part in an offsite visit related to their area of study. There is also a creative phase, where the children will investigate, analyse and evaluate the experiences of the community, including records, music, fashion, dance, television and broader popular culture depending upon the nature of the local heritage being studied. They also interview members of the community who lived through the period being explored to raise their community engagement with local groups.

Outcomes

The children shall work in partnership, with different generations from the community to research, collate and produce their final anthologies and exhibition.

The project will inspire the young people to take an interest in local history and build their wider confidence, literary ability and historical skills. It would provide a lasting document to record the impact of change in their local community.

A community event, documentary film, public exhibition and anthology of work is produced by the young people to build lasting links between themselves, their families and the cider community.

The young people shall directly improve their self-esteem and broader life skills as they transition in to secondary school.

If you would like us to deliver a programme in your school, please get in touch and we will devise a programme just for your students!

Our success stories

Anthologies

Take a look at the fabulous anthologies that the children have produced as part of our Heritage Programme.

Click here to take a look

“

From the children living in North Shields, we have a real sense of community at our school. But it has been incredibly important for them to learn more about their heritage. A lot of our students were not aware of the history of the Fish Quay, and the wealth of information that they have received has been amazing. We were so thankful to be part of Building Self-Belief's Heritage Programme.

”

- Emma Wake, Christ Church C of E Primary School

“

The Building Self-Belief CIO heritage programme was a fantastic way to connect the history of our school and local area with a range of local community groups. The children loved doing the research and the visit to Beamish as part of their 1950’s project. They even got to interview a member of the ‘Windrush Generation’ by Zoom. The children blossomed in confidence as the project progressed, which has really helped them to prepare for the step up to secondary school in the future.

”

- Mrs D Kelly, Crookhill Primary School