Science City

Alongside renowned historian Neil Tonge (of ‘Horrible Histories’ fame), Roots and Wings worked with children from Our Lady & Saint Annes Primary School to explore the history of the Gallowgate, an area of Newcastle with a rich (and occasionally dark) history and the chosen location of the new Science City development. For this project, classes from two year groups were enlisted as ‘junior detectives’, and were taken on various trips around the city exploring the history of the area. These included history walks and trips to Tyne and Wear Archive and the archive at Newcastle Central Library. The culmination of this project was a short silent film (before ‘The Artist’ made it cool) starring the children themselves and drama students from Northumbria University. The children also worked with the drama students on a period drama which was performed at the Mining Institute.

Following on from the Gallowgate History Project, Roots and Wings worked with Neil Tonge to produce activity packs allowing the activities undertaken with the Our Lady & Saint Annes children to be easily repeated with other primary school children.