Key Stage 2
Religious Education, History, Geography and English
Diocese of Coventry in partnership with St Bartholomew’s CE Primary School.
The teacher wanted to increase student:
- awareness and appreciation of their surroundings
- understanding of building design
- ability to work as a team
Engaging Places exhibition, Wolverhampton © CABE
The mission embraced by the Divine Inspiration project was to open pupils’ eyes to the places around them and to give them an enjoyable and rewarding experience of learning outside the classroom. Starting with a fresh experience of the city of Coventry – a place the pupils associated with the boredom of shopping with their parents – the project then focussed on the exploration of two very different churches.
St Bartholomew’s is in Binley on the outskirts of Coventry. The initial problem the project encountered was that the young people found little or no imaginative appeal in their local built environment. Their favourite buildings tended to be the small number of contrasting modern and bright buildings in Binley. Their appreciation of the wider environment was limited. The experience of the new places visited in Coventry city centre began to change this outlook. The pupils were asked to be detectives. They began to spot buildings and details that had gone unnoticed until then. The curved roof of The Herbert Art Gallery caused excitement, as did an impromptu visit to a tower in the old city wall.
An excitement about buildings began to be felt in the special places the project took them into. The pupils began to recognise the ‘power of place’, and nowhere was this experienced with greater immediacy than in the silent and beautiful crypt of Berkswell Church. After these experiences, the pupils’ attitudes towards the familiar places that belong to their daily routines have changed profoundly.
Read more about how this project developed.
Read the students' thoughts on the project.
Read letters to the Engaging Places team from the pupils.
Callum Brown, aged 9
Jessica Heath, aged 9
Raneka Perry-Straker, aged 9
Sujahd Hussan, aged 9
Tacharna Duke
