Co-production is at the heart of the Staffordshire History Centre

Co-production means collaborating with your community and letting their ideas shape the final outcomes. Learning Officer Lizzie has been working with groups, schools and families to develop new activities and resources for the new Staffordshire History Centre. In this blog she explores the work that goes into ensuring that the activities and school sessions we offer meet the needs of our audiences. 

“Young people’s ideas have influenced everything from the interactives to the interpretation: we have hosted object handling sessions at libraries, co-production crafts in school holidays and curator consultations with college students. Our Family Focus Group tirelessly gives us feedback on everything: from font choice to game mechanics! The formal learning programme is no exception: over the last few months, Staffordshire children have helped me design a heraldic adventure as part of a varied schools offer.

The early years ‘Colourful Coats of Arms’ workshop explores the symbolic animals emblazoned on Staffordshire crests. This session supports the Castles and Knights, local history and family trees curriculum modules, and encourages pupils aged 3-7 years old to work as a team, express their individuality and engage with traditions from centuries ago.

Our first heraldic escapades took us to Baswich Library, in Summer 2023. We set up heraldic hunts (scavenger hunts for wax seals and sigils), craft activities to make your own crests and short drama activities based around animal impressions. Small family groups tested activities and gave feedback, showing us that the session needed more drama and even more historical information. They also innovated their own ‘coat wings’, demonstrating that we need dressing up opportunities!

From there, the drop-in activities expanded into a school session: I added a group problem solving task, and was inspired by their questions to add cards and posters to show the animals’ ‘meanings’. We also now have a dressing up trolley! I wheeled my way to St Mary’s Primary School in Uttoxeter, and four classroom sessions later the classroom adventure was ready to pilot. We crafted coats of arms using colourful animal stamps, rescued the Lonely Lion with some stellar animal performances, and used hand actions and sound to involve the entire class in the joy of history.

We began this project on a library carpet, working together with toddlers to understand the concept of metaphors. The session now involves 30+ animal masks, a giant yellow and red floor mat with the Staffordshire chevron, a lion costume with a cape and sword and enough ink pads to tie dye an entire school uniform.

I will be piloting the final session at Christ Church Primary School in Burton upon Trent at the end of June: thank you so much to the library team and the staff at St Mary’s for their support.”