We are currently engaged in the second of a three year Paul Hamlyn Foundation-funded programme of heritage and arts-based learning, working with primary schools in North Tyneside.

The Primary Source Programme features residencies with New York and Carville Primary Schools based in North Shields and Wallsend. Resident in school and the local community, we are working closely with teaching staff and senior leaders to co-create innovative documentary film and photography projects across KS2, linked to the National Curriculum and utilising the unique archive resources held in the AmberSide Collection. 

During the first year, we quickly established the value of our approach to project delivery in school, testing various new project models across years 4, 5 and 6.

Postcode Explorers is a shining example of the depth and impact we can bring to place-based project delivery. Working closely with teachers at New York Primary, we created a project to engage all 55 pupils across Year 5, to explore the history and heritage of the local area. Amber then brought together resources and local partners, creating a special day of heritage learning with the help of North East Museums staff and volunteers at local venue, Stephenson Steam Railway where pupils were invited to explore the site and its historic link to the dock areas on the north shores of the river Tyne. As part of the activities, pupils were also able to examine Ordinance Survey maps supplied by Historic England, dating back to 1860s, to contrast with modern maps of the local area illustrating the transformation from a rural to an urban environment. Local volunteer-led organisation, Remembering the Past also supported the event providing a moving oral history recording of local resident Elsie Wilkinson recalling life in the community from the 1920s onwards. 

The project combined research with creative exploration as pupils were given detailed weekly skills training in documentary photography using entry level DSLR cameras, delivered across six sessions by the Amber team including photographers Maria Maza and Gary Calton. Training featured approaches and techniques that would allow the comprehensive documentation of the local area including the built environment and crucially, members of the local community.

Postcode Explorers in Action

Pupils were shown examples of Sally-Ann Norman’s work Farewell Squalor, to inspire the documentation of their local built environment:

Towards the end of the camera skills training sessions, we adapted delivery to include a ‘Masterclass’ session on portraiture from photographer Gary Calton, whose Citizen’s of Our Time exhibition featured in Side’s 2022-23 exhibition programme. Pupils heard all about Gary’s photographic practice and in particular his regular work for The Observer, newspaper, where portraiture features prominently.

All of the research and camera skills sessions prepared pupils for their assignment and on June 5th and 6th, three separate groups of photographers set off to spend the whole day documenting their community, walking routes planned and timed meticulously by Amber. This was a hugely ambitious project and a challenge which pupils responded to, showing all their collective talent and producing work of the standard you would ordinarily expect to see in an undergraduate exhibition.

The community also responded to our call and dedicated door knocking, with over 70 portraits included in the final exhibition of over 140 photographs, which has been shown and celebrated twice locally since, with over 50 community members attending to receive a copy of their own portrait as a souvenir.