Heritage award for school history project

Norwich Primary Academy has been recognised as a Heritage School for its work in exploring and celebrating local history.

Members of the school’s History Club were presented with certificates and a plaque by Kate Argyle from Historic England on Monday, July 15.

Young historians Ava-Jean Murphy, Lilly Beaman, Ruby Brooker-Smith, Elijah Paul, Macauley Ward, Holly Huang, and Tommy Gledhill worked on a project about the Norwich Union Workhouse, which housed poor families in the 19th century and was located close to Norwich Primary’s present-day site.

Using resources such as census data from Ancestry.com, the children and History Club leader Miss Craven pieced together the story of the Haze family from Norwich, who spent time in the workhouse in the late 1800s.

They also visited the Norfolk Record Office to see the originals of some of the documents they had been looking at online, and find out how the office preserves historical documents.

The pupils built a website about their project which you can visit at sites.google.com/inspirationtrust.org/npahistoryclub

Historic England’s Heritage Schools programme aims to help schoolchildren develop an understanding of their local heritage and its significance, and a sense of pride in where they live.