Teachers Rosemary Dymond and Anne Schuster teamed up with Jill Harris from South East Planning Aid to run the Engaging Places Gravesend Riviera project. Students are considering the regeneration of Gravesend Canal Basin, in a project they have renamed ‘Putting a new building’. Read their take on the project so far.
Students project work on display © Alys Tomlinson
Written by Alice Sims, aged 11 years 3 months
In school council we have been working on our project ‘Putting up a new building’. So far, we have made models (quite recently) with a model maker – Mr Earle. We were also joined by a few Thamesview teachers and a small group of Thamesview sixth form students. The students had joined us earlier during the year. At a recent meeting together we all shared presentations. Together, we also made models out of foam board which we used knives to cut pieces from and strong glue. Of course we had help with this from the sixth form students and they helped supervise us.
Earlier in the year we had Mrs Soder of the Gravesend Historical Society,who came to our school and she gave us two talks on Gravesend’s history in which we all learnt a lot about Gravesend that we didn’t already know.
Also Riverview Junior School hosted a tea party on 4th February 2010 for some Gravesend elderly citizens. A waterman and a Swan Upper also attended, they both gave a speech. The waterman described his job like the taxi on the river Thames. He could also track his family right back to 1666! 1666 of course was the Great Fire of London when many bridges were burnt down.
The Swan Upper has a very important job; that is to catch all the swans that belong to the Queen, so it was an honour to meet him. The purpose of the tea party was so we could interview the guests to get a flavour of what they would like to see in the new development around the canal basin. But especially our Heritage Centre there.
We all have been working diligently on our designs, in pairs if we wish, and have thought about the following: accessibility: for example you could include ramps so disabled people can access the Heritage Centre: sustainability, what it was going to be made out of, how strong is the material, how long it would stay up. Would the heating be eco-friendly? We also had to make it safe!
Mrs Harris (from Planning Aid) came to Riverview and had put together a PowerPoint to present to us, about museums and heritage centre styles. All the members were asked to record notes on what she said. Mrs Harris told us about different window and balcony functions and recommended some of her favourites. This happened on the 29th January 2010.
Since I have started this project I have developed more courage and strength to speak in front of adults and children. For example, when we presented our designs to school council and the Headteacher. I have always been quite quiet but now am more comfortable speaking in public. I cannot wait to continue with this project. I am thoroughly enjoying.
Written by Hannah Wells, aged 11 years 5 months
Recently in school council we have been involved in various different things but the project we have been most involved in is developing a Gravesend Heritage Centre along by the Canal Basin.
Over the past 4 months we have specialised in making a Heritage Centre. Obviously we couldn’t just write down what we thought, so we organised a tea party with people who have been living in Gravesend for a long period of time. The idea of this was to go around with a partner and interview different people and see what they thought would be a good idea to include in different parts of the Heritage Centre.
A local historian came in and discussed local landmarks which included, Peggoty’s Boat House, which has great historical references within Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. The soap factory owned by two men named Henry and Isaac was first built in the WWI. The railway line was the first ever in Gravesend built in 1824 along the Canal Basin. The Power station which was finally finished in 1930 and around it there were four mills, a flour mill, Gas works, Iron works and an electricity works.
On a later date we were joined by sixth formers from Thamesview School sharing with us what they thought would be a good idea to include in the designing of the Heritage Centre and also shared with us a little project that they had done by themselves on various different things including life under the river Thames, jobs along the river Thames and the RNLI life boat institution. I then shared my ideas on coal and the coal warehouse which was based at the Canal Basin.
On 29th January 2010, we were joined by Mrs Harris, a planner. She told us about what kinds of things we need to think about whilst designing the centre. Pointing out places on a map, showing us places that will be knocked down and buildings that need to be improved. She told us to think about the colours of the building. The Centre needs to be located so that from wherever you stand you can see up and down the river.
Students interview visitors at tea party © Alys Tomlinson
Written by Isabel Smith, aged 10 years 11 months
In School Council we have recently been working on a project, Gravesend Riviera, in which we are building a new Heritage Centre. We have been working on this project with sixth form students from Thamesview School, although they have been doing much more advanced work than us. We have been working on our project for 3 months now. During those 3 months we have come incredibly far with our project.
We have had visitors come in and help us with our ideas. In fact we have had a visitor come in almost every week. We also held a tea party in our school, on Tuesday 4th February, to help us find out what other people’s views on our project were, and what they wanted to see. We went around the tables with a partner and interviewed the guests. The tea party was a huge success and we even had one of the Queen’s Swann Uppers come and talk to us about his job. We found it a tremendous help to our project.
One of the visitors, who came into school, was a local historian, Mrs Soder. She came in to talk to us about the history of Gravesend, she came in several times, bringing fascinating facts with her each time. Mrs Soder was also at the tea party and I interviewed her as well. She had some great ideas for the Heritage Centre and we will use some of them.
Another visitor was an architect model maker who had made models of many of the buildings you see everyday, Mr Earle. Mr Earle came in to show us how to make a model of a building, so that we could make our own one to show what we would like to see. Thamesview students also came in to help us, and listen to Mr Earle as well. He was very helpful, and we all designed great buildings.
I am really enjoying this project so far and hopefully we will be able to do something like this again.
The Engaging Places network
To find out about other partnerships and projects developing through the Engaging Places network visit the 2009/10 Engaging Places network article.
