Charles Darwin: a Genius in the Heart of London

Burdett Coutts pupils visit Darwin's grave, Westminster Abbey

Darwin drama sessions

During September Peter Daniel and Camilla Bergman from Westminster Archives, assisted by volunteer students from Goldsmiths College and the CAPA programme, undertook a series of drama workshops with Burdett Coutts (2 classes), Soho Parish, St Matthews, St Vincent De Paul and St Barnabas primary schools.

The sessions were based around a story written by Education and Interpretation Officer Peter Daniel about Darwin’s visits to his Soho barber William Willis. The idea for the story came from remarks in Darwin’s own note books mentioning his long chats with his barber Willis who was also a dog breeder. The story was set in Willis’s barber shop at 46 Great Marlborough Street on the night before Darwin proposed to his future wife Emma. 

The Darwin’s drama was split into six scenes based around the conversation that took place in the barber’s shop between Darwin and Willis. The children first witnessed a demonstration of what they had to do from the Archives team.  Children learnt techniques of freeze frame drama before focussing on one of the six scenes from Darwin’s life.  Eventually each group performed back to the class so that together they could relate the full story of Darwin’s remarkable life.

A storybook and drama pack has now been printed and is available free to Westminster schools.  It contains writing frames to allow children to write up the scenes that they have worked on to produce a collaborative play script.

The drama sessions were very well received by teachers. David Ward Y6 teacher at Burdett Coutts said:

Our children really enjoyed the drama sessions, which helped them start to develop an understanding of Darwin's life and work.  We later used the Drama Workshop templates to teach play script writing, and we will access them again from the Darwin in London web site next year when we return to Darwin.  Many children enjoy and benefit from being able to perform drama and role play as part of their learning, so it is an excellent resource to have.

Animation Sessions

Tom Hillenbrand, a skilled animator, delivered 7 animation sessions to pupils from Soho Parish Primary School and young people from Action for Children at Down House.  The animation was based around Peter Daniel’s story of Darwin and his barber William Willis. Animation is a positive way of engaging children in history whilst teaching them new skills.  Tom researched his subject before the sessions and the film can be sued to answer the many questions children have about Darwin.  A 20 minute animation was produced, which can be seen on the project website www.darwininlondon.co.uk

Comments from the animation sessions

Teacher: The children learnt a great deal about Charles Darwin, and the process of animation, developing team work skills

Pupil: I learnt a lot about Darwin and what he did in his daily life, I learnt that in animating, it takes passion and a lot of making paper things to put it in.

Pupil: I learnt that animation is a lot of work, and you have to put in lots and lots of detail. I learnt that Darwin had a hairdresser. The thing that I enjoyed the most was making the armadillo and the dog.

Pupil: I learnt that animation is extremely hard, and that Darwin went to Chile and saw a volcano erupt. I really enjoyed making the amazing volcano. I had a great time filming the animation; I really liked using the camera.

Debate

The Linnean Society of London was pleased with the partnership that they forged with Westminster Libraries to help facilitate the KS4 Darwin debate.  Westminster Academy, St Augustine’s and Quintin Kynaston attended their local libraries to prepare for the final debate. The material they reviewed was braod and thought provoking: - Darwin - Art & Literature, Social Black History, His Life and Work, Science and Industry. 

Although it was disappointing that Westminster Academy could not take part in the actual debate the remaining two schools did very well and learnt a lot from the experience.  Quintin Kynaston, rose to the occasion by delivering a fantastic argument which won them the shield.  The Linnean Society Darwin Debate shield was presented to the winners in front of 350 pupils at their school assembly.

Darwin Opera

The Darwin opera took place at the Royal Society on the 23rd November to amrk the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species.’  The performance by Year 5 children at St Vincent De Paul School was fantastic.  It was a triumph for composer Russell Hepplewhite and director Helen Eastman.  The performance involved a mixture of professional musicians working with children. Everyone was impressed with the cross curricular approach to the performance and parent participation.  A great deal of work was undertaken making all the props and costumes by different year groups at St Vincent De Paul, making it a real team performance.  A number of distinguished guests attended including Westminster Council Chief Executive Mike Moore.

School visit to the Linnean Society

St Vincent de Paul visited the Linnean Society to see the Darwin portrait and to take notes for ideas for their performance.  Ruth Temple of the Linnean Society gave a 20 minute presentation on Darwin; the students were then shown some material which had belonged to Darwin and this was followed by question and answers from the floor by year 5 pupils.   The trip out was beneficial to the pupils, helping them gain a deeper insight into Darwin’s life and inspiring them to write lyrics for the Darwin Opera.

 Sub Rosa performance

During the week of the 23rd November 6 classes of children from Westminster primary schools visited Westminster Archives to see an original play performed by the Sub Rosa Theatre Group based on the story of Darwin and his barber William Willis.  The play gave the children a full overview of Darwin’s life and allowed them to benefit from their visit to Darwin’s tomb in Westminster Abbey.

Darwin Schools Service in Westminster Abbey

Participating primary schools visited Darwin’s tomb to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘on the origin of Species.  Each school brought a tribute to Darwin that they had made at school and learnt a song that could be sung as part of a short service. Canon Jane Hedges thought that the service had a positive impact on visitors visiting the Abbey as they were able to see school children performing live and some visitors gathered around and took part in the service.

Geological Society Darwin Rocks and Soils session

The Rocks and Soils sessions carried out by staff from the Geological Society and Westminster Archives and went very well.  5 classes took part at session based at the Geological Society in Piccadilly and in the meeting room at Westminster Archives.  Sarah Day of the Geological Society hopes to run more sessions with year 3s in the future.

Inset Training at Burdett Coutts School

Caroline and Derek Walton delivered an excellent INSET to 20 participants including 15 teachers.  The INSET, which focused on geology used a range of techniques to teach children about complex ideas.  The sessions were really inspiring as they broke difficult theories down into simple concepts so that they could easily be understood.  For example, the staff were shown how a toilet roll could be used to represent a time line showing the age of the earth and how the theory of plate tectonics could be explained to children suing an Oreo biscuit! 

Following the inset training Caroline and Derek delivered 2 school lessons to year 6s at Burdett Coutts, in which other members of staff were invited to observe.

Burdett Coutts school have been so impressed by the whole project that they have now made it a permanent part of their curriculum.  Teacher David Ward said:

We are very pleased to have been involved in Westminster Archives' Darwin in London Project this autumn term. As you know, all primary schools are being encouraged to develop and expand the cross-curricular opportunities in their teaching of topics.  Charles Darwin was a new topic for Burdett-Coutts, but it had been flagged up in the Rose Report (summer 09) as an example of the kind of area of cross-curricular learning that "provided children with powerful opportunities for children to use and apply their knowledge and skills across subjects".  In particular, it has obvious links with Science (as well as History, Geography and Literacy), which is a subject that is often missed by traditional topics, and goes really well with Adaptation, which we teach in Year 6. Finally, we were keen to take it up because we wanted to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Westminster Archives project. 

None of this would have happened if the Darwin in London project had not invited us to be involved, so thank you to all of you at Westminster Archives for all your work on the project and for all the learning opportunities and resources it has given us.

Exhibition evaluation

The display has been hosted at Westminster Abbey and City of Westminster Archives, The Royal Society and has been at the Linnean Society since the 1st Feb where it is on display in the library alongside some Darwin artefacts.

Darwin in London Website

A full overview of all the project activities can be found at www.darwininlondon.co.uk.

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