'Our Village, Our Future' 2025

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Founded in 1970, by Lady Plowden, Tattenhall Park Primary was one of the first of it's kind in the UK to be created as a community hub and in the words of Lady Plowden, was intended to be 'at the heart of community life'.

To retain this ethos we are deeply committed to harnessing community links to enhance and contextualise our curriculum - this is personified in the school mission statement - 'Roots to grow and wings to fly'.

This year, the school celebrated it's 55th birthday and to celebrate, we decided to make a collaborative historical/environmental film- 'Our Village, Our Future', to capture the wealth of historical knowledge in the village and to inspire children and the wider community to protect their local heritage and biodiversity.

The children worked alongside many community organisations to research the history of the village from the time of the dinosaurs to the present day. They also explored ways in which they could protect the village for future generations. The outcome was a 20 minute film, which was shown to the whole village as a large scale outdoor event.

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‘Our Village, Our Future’ was intended to accurately reflect the history of the village and how it could be conserved for future generations. This involved collaborations with many village residents including; the Parish Council, Tattenhall Historical Society, St. Albans Church, Tattenhall Transition, Bolesworth Castle, past pupils and staff. The children interviewed parents and grandparents and gathered information, photographs and pictures of the key historical periods they studied across the school curriculum. Even the teachers were surprised to find what a wealth of historical evidence on their doorstep- we even discovered there were Roman remains near the school!

The children also networked with organisations who protect the biodiversity of the village and included a section about this at the end of the film.

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The film included: A green-screened journey through history in a time machine (designed by the children), a script written by teachers, children and the local community, two bespoke songs written by the children and sung with the local choir, pictures and research from the children and photographs sourced from their families in the village to showcase the history of the village, drone footage of the village, interviews by the children with local

residents and a giant 55 made from all the school children!

It was made in two days with a film crew from Impossible Arts. We had a Roman centurion visit to march through the streets of Tattenhall, we rang the bells up the bell tower, sang with the village choir and some of the voice-overs were recorded by local residents. We also filmed a 'giant Tattenhall wave', on the high street, with all the residents of the village waving to a drone- it was a very special moment!

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We showcased the film to the whole community on a giant outdoor screen and many local organisations- historical, musical and ecological attended to network with the children and their families. Hundreds of people attended the event and we also took the film to the local retirement home to share with the residents.

We also opened the school, a few weeks later to the public and showed all the photographs and materials we had gathered – it was lovely to meet so many past pupils keen to share stories about their experiences of the school and we even met one family who had three generations of connections with the school!

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