Storytelling at Carlisle Archive Centre: Dominic Kelly and Pettril Bank Primary School

School/Setting

Pettril Bank Primary School and Carlisle Archive Centre

Partners

Dominic Kelly, professional storyteller
Dawn Hurton, Outreach Officer for Carlisle Archives
Heather Tipler, project co-ordinator & evaluator

Aims 

This project included a themed programme of activities, in which Carlisle Archive Centre worked with nearby school Petteril Bank Primary to explore the life and times of Lady Gillford, a significant member of the local community whose house is part of the Archive centre.

The project aimed to
-Explore how everyday archival records can be interpreted in a creative and accessible way to bring to life the human lives and times behind the records.

-Widen and develop audiences which have no previous experience of archives and lay the foundations for community participation in the future development of the centre.

Process

The Yr 5/6 class visited Carlisle Archives twice a week in the autumn term, beginning with a session where they were introduced to the archives and the strong room. They also had a tour of Lady Gilford house so they could envisage the upstairs/downstairs layout with kitchen at the bottom, servants’ quarters in the roof and the rooms that Lady Gilford used.

Storyteller Dominic Kelly spent time researching the archival resources for relevant details about Lady Gilford, her household and her community involvement. Using these resources as a starting point, several household members were identified such as maids, and these became the characters that the children based their stories around.

In the art and craft sessions with Dawn Hurton children made large papier mache models of Lady Gilford, her daughter and three hounds as well as individual clay faces of their own design.

With Dominic pupils did exercises which taught them voice control, variety of expression, using movement etc. The project culminated in a performance using the models and new storytelling skills which was well attended by parents.

Two twilight CPD sessions on storytelling were well attended by school staff and other Cumbrian archivists and library staff.

Impact

The project has been hugely successful for all the partners involved.

For teachers
• The class teacher was so pleased with how the project developed that, rather than this being part of their curriculum, it became the curriculum and this will continue after the project ends.
• Staff have become confident in working with story and storytelling that they will be able to continue in school:

‘Personally I’ve learnt a lot of skills for teaching: tips, activities, exercises that we can use for improving speaking and listening skills. Using primary resources: looking at the newspapers went better than I thought, the children loved it. Loads of potential’

‘It was like a breath of fresh air. It’s nice to take learning out of the classroom. The feel of the archives is lovely and we knew we’d get a lot out of it’.

• The school has built a solid relationship with the archives which will be sustained in the future.

For pupils
• Children’s speaking skills have improved enormously, the performance element was challenging but on the whole they grew in confidence;

 ‘Now I can stand in front of our class and tell stuff like the story’.

‘I’ve learnt that telling stories is hard work but it is fun as well. It’s hard because you’ve got to think what you’re saying and put expression in it’

For partners

‘As a first project it’s been brilliant because we’ve made a very strong connection with the school that’s on our doorstep. This will stand us in good stead for doing further work with the community. Not only do other classes at Petteril Bank want to work with us but other schools are talking about it.' Dawn Hurton, Carlisle Archive Centre

• Dominic has considerable experience in facilitating groups in creating stories using museum objects but with this project he has progressed to working with purely written resources. He has found it more demanding though the children have been more interested in these written resources than he expected.

Next Steps

The school can now see the potential for incorporating the archives into their curriculum plans for the future. For example, the house was used in the World War 2 as an orphanage so they could look at evacuees.

A key to the success of the project was using archive records to create storytelling and combining this with practical making of something visual to support the telling of the story. The project will act as a template for future work at the Archives.

Find out more

Email Dawn Hurton, Carlisle Archive Centre or Heather Tipler, former Creative Agent and project co-ordinator