Littlecoates Primary Academy – Peter Dixon’s History Group

At Littlecoates we believe locality studies are an important part of our historical learning about the past. Making links between people, places and events that have happened in our local area helps us make sense of the changing world we live in now. A lot of our history curriculum at Littlecoates is embedded in our locality. One particular topic in Key Stage One is centered around our school and the surrounding area. We talk about when the school was built, who the teachers were and significant events in the school’s history. One of these events was the building of the war memorial which was placed in our playground. This is where the link to Dixon’s paper mill began for us as a school. We talk about Mr. Dixon from the paper mill paying for the cenotaph and placing it centrally in the community in our school playground as part of this topic. Children often ask us about Mr. Dixon or Dixon’s papermill and we had some photographs we used to briefly discuss it. This is why the thought of finding out more about this building , who built it, why it was built and how it has affected our locality ever since is so interesting.

We were approached by The Arts and Heritage Team who were working on a project called ‘Our big picture’ and asked if we were interested in collaborating with local artist Lucy Frejiszyn Hanson. Lucy specialises in printmaking, particularly the heritage craft of letterpress; she also has family connections to both the paper mill and Littlecoates school, and has shared some of her own collection of photographs. With a lot of support from Alan Burley and Jane Hyldon-King we have been able to put together a half terms programme for our termly afterschool ‘Craftory’ club. Our popular Craftory club is made up of around 25 mixed age (from 5-11 years old) children from our school who choose to remain after school and learn about our past. They are encouraged to ask questions and develop their historical understanding and skills whilst exploring history via the means of art. Lucy has been delivering a range of activities for the children to explore traditional printing processes using equipment such as presses, ink rollers and even Lego, to create artwork inspired by the topic.