Our School Days

Memories, Legacies & Heritage tales from across Newhaven, Trinity and Leith Harbour 

Schooldays was an intergenerational and cross-cultural heritage project delivered by the Heart of Newhaven, engaging communities across Newhaven, Leith and Wardie in North Edinburgh. The project explored shared and diverse experiences of school life to bring people together, reduce isolation and improve wellbeing through heritage-focused activity. 

This was the Heart of Newhaven’s first National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project. It brought together staff, resident organisations and creative practitioners based in the building to design and deliver a programme of participatory heritage and creative activity rooted in lived experience. Activities explored educational and cultural heritage through memory sharing, oral history, craft, visual art, music, storytelling and performance, using shared school day experiences as a common starting point. 

The project was delivered in partnership with eight organisations and creatives based within the Heart of Newhaven including; Bookbinder Cass Barron, Printmaker Lorna Brown, Daddy Day Care (DDC), History of Education Centre (HEC), Leith Men’s Shed, MWAMBA, Spiders for Ukraine (Spiders) and Tortoise in a Nutshell Theatre Company (TIAN), alongside close collaboration with Pilmeny Development Project (PDP). Across the project, fifteen heritage practitioners and creatives were engaged, including educators and reminiscence specialists, writers, storytellers, visual artists, theatre makers, movement practitioners, a musician, filmmakers and photographers. 

A total of 4073 participants engaged across the project as participants, facilitators, volunteers, collaborators, partners, tour and exhibition visitors. Participants included children, older adults, families and community members from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. The project worked with pupils from four local primary schools (Victoria, Trinity, Holy Cross and Wardie), primarily with P6-P7 pupils aged 9-11. Adult participation took place through six community groups based within the Heart of Newhaven building, alongside one external community group supporting Polish and Ukrainian participants. 

Although all funded activity is now complete, Schooldays has created a lasting legacy. A portable museum co-created through the project has been permanently installed in the Heritage Suite at the Heart of Newhaven and will continue to be used for future workshops, visits and community bookings. Regular tours of the building by HoNC volunteers continue to highlight historical features of the building.

“Meeting the children has reassured me that not all young people are as scary as I had anticipated… being around them gives me a sense of joy and comfort.”

(adult workshop participant)

Many thanks go to everyone who has supported the School Days project including:

All of our project partners based in the building:  

·         Alice Bacciarelli and Christine McDerment at The History of Education Lothian (The Victorian School Room). 

·         Artist and bookbinder, Cassandra Barron

·         Printmaker, Lorna Brown.

·         Jan Brown and volunteers at The Hearts Dementia Meeting Centre.

·         Fiona Fraser, team and volunteers at MWAMBA.

·         Arron Howie, Indra Wilson and the Tortoise in a Nutshell Team.

·         Norma Johnston and all the members of the Knit and Natter group.

·         Nataliya from Spiders 4 Ukraine.

·         Men’s Shed of Leith

·         Daddy Day Care

Our collaborating partners and creatives:

·         Anne Munro, the team and volunteers, Mary O’Connell, Andrew Johnstone and Jim Lewis at Pilmeny Development Project and member of The Newhaven Friendship group.

·         Ola Szczygielska and Feniks.

·         Storyteller, Jan Brown.

·         Poet, Ken Cockburn

·         Musician, Todd Henkins

All the teachers, staff and pupils from the local participating schools; Victoria, Trinity, Holy Cross and Wardie Primary Schools and Trinity Academy.