We are writing to inform you of what we have been doing this term in our group called, ‘The Heritage Heroes’. We are a group of 10- and 11-year-olds and meet once a week to develop our knowledge and understanding in the heritage of Rushden. By embedding this initiative within our school, we can educate the other pupils at Rushden Primary Academy and ensure our heritage is upheld.

So far, we have gone on a walk around our local area (Rushden) to look at listed buildings (a listed building is a building that has special architectural and historical interest). On this walk, we discovered a high number of interesting facts and enjoyed walking around and looking at historic buildings. We also looked at architectural details about certain buildings and why they are designed like this. On this walk, we talked about why we thought they had high interest, some of our ideas were that they were vulnerable to falling or that they had a big part in historic events. In   addition to this, we took photographs to use as educational props for when we returned to our school. Written by Gracie.

Then when we got back to school, we made a board to celebrate Rushden’s heritage. We plotted the listed buildings in Rushden on a map. Then, we connected them together with string to a picture of the building for our children to admire. As an additional feature, we all wrote speeches to what we admired about the listed building. Written by Layla.

We thoroughly enjoyed uploading our pictures on to the Historic England website: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/map-search?postcode=nn100yx&clearresults=True Historic England has listed buildings, battlefields, monuments, parks, gardens, shipwrecks and more. It is home to wonderful people and wonderful places with wonderful stories. We took a lot of pride in the fact, that we were the first people to upload photographs for the general public to enjoy. Written by Maria.

Finally, we are currently preparing to deliver an assembly to the whole school, where we can begin to share the amazing work, we are doing and to educate younger minds about the area they live in. Parts of the assembly, that we have included are: a spot the difference between an old photo of Rushden and a modern photo of Rushden, a quiz on listed buildings and quotes to interest and immerse the school. Written by Amaya.

We hope you have enjoyed reading this article and it has persuaded you to learn more about listed buildings in our area. Written by Aimee and Sophy.

Assemblies

Further to this introduction, the Year 6 girls have recently informed their peers during a whole school assembly, where they shared their current findings of listed buildings in Rushden. Their assembly slides can be found at the bottom of this page.

Local Walk

Last week, the Heritage Heroes embarked on a 10,000 step mission to discover some blue plaques that are of some interest to our academy. The girls, Mrs Scott and I used a map to plan the route and then we explored our heritage! It was a fantastic experience, with a little pit stop at Costa, where the girls came face to face with the significant areas of the place they call home. They are now working hard on turning the information they discovered into a child-friendly activity for the children at RPA to complete during their half-term break.