Our list of Patrons expands again today with two incredibly well-respected women from the history community kindly agreeing to support the Trust's aims. Christine Counsell is a Senior Lecturer at Cambridge University and the Editor of Teaching History - the Historical Association's journal for over 3,500 history teachers. She will bring much experience of having helped to develop the history curriculum and the pressures history teachers are under. Our next confirmed Patron is Professor Pat Thane, Leverhulme Professor of Contemporary British History and Director, Centre for Contemporary British History. We are really chuffed both of them have agreed to be Patrons since they are incredibly busy with lots of other organisations.
So that brings our latest list of Patrons to nine: Professor David Cannadine, Rt Hon John Hutton MP, Tony Robinson, Karen Pollock, Professor Brian Brivati, Dr Tristram Hunt, Ben Macintyre, Christine Counsell and Professor Pat Thane
More to be confirmed soon, so watch this space!
Friday, 27 June 2008
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
We've signed up to the 'Learning Outside the Classroom' Manifesto
Having met with the Learning Outside the Classroom team at the DCSF yesterday, I'm pleased to sign up the GBHT to their manifesto which promotes the benefits of learning outside the classroom and will help to make sure that teachers have the resources and training to understand the benefits of taking young people out of school. I am very hopeful that Gareth's Trust will directly help to fulfill the aims of the manifesto and that in time we will also be able to provide best practice and advice to history teachers who want to take their students out of school.
It is just a week to go now until the launch of the Trust and I am delighted that we have three year 11 students from Bramhall High School in Stockport coming to tell guests about their experiences going on the Battlefields tour this year. I'm very happy with the turnout for the launch - we've been inundated with people wanting to attend and now have had to start a reserve list! I wouldn't have been able to achieve it without my brilliant intern Steph who has been working very hard to pull everything together. Lots of great candidates applied, so sorry to those of you who didn't get the position, but I hope you will still support the aims of the Trust!
So now it's just the last minute things to finalise. I've ordered a banner stand and am in the process of designing leaflets thanks to a wonderful pro bono offer from John Schwartz at Soapbox Communications Soon I'm going to have to think about writing my speech... If anyone has any good quotations illustrating the importance of understanding history please send them my way....
It is just a week to go now until the launch of the Trust and I am delighted that we have three year 11 students from Bramhall High School in Stockport coming to tell guests about their experiences going on the Battlefields tour this year. I'm very happy with the turnout for the launch - we've been inundated with people wanting to attend and now have had to start a reserve list! I wouldn't have been able to achieve it without my brilliant intern Steph who has been working very hard to pull everything together. Lots of great candidates applied, so sorry to those of you who didn't get the position, but I hope you will still support the aims of the Trust!
So now it's just the last minute things to finalise. I've ordered a banner stand and am in the process of designing leaflets thanks to a wonderful pro bono offer from John Schwartz at Soapbox Communications Soon I'm going to have to think about writing my speech... If anyone has any good quotations illustrating the importance of understanding history please send them my way....
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Rushed off my feet...
There's just been no time to blog - I have no idea how regular bloggers do it! We're not far away from the launch of the Trust on the 2nd July and there's still so much work to do on it, but we're getting there. Tony Robinson agreed he could speak at the launch today and James Naughtie of Today Programme fame rather wonderfully said he would host the event. Now we just have to find some young people who have been on the battlefield tours to build up the nerve to tell us their experiences!
Given the sheer amount of admin I'm having to do at the moment I decided to advertise for an intern to help out and have been very pleasantly surprised by the large number of high quality applications I've received. Deciding who to pick is going to be the hard thing! Closing date is Wednesday 18th though, so if you know of someone who might be good to help, do get them to contact me! And there's still the need to find somewhere with a computer and phone...
Sometimes I feel like I'm doing two full time jobs, but I'm getting more excited about the launch now it all seems to be coming together. Right, better go and decide on the canapés...
Given the sheer amount of admin I'm having to do at the moment I decided to advertise for an intern to help out and have been very pleasantly surprised by the large number of high quality applications I've received. Deciding who to pick is going to be the hard thing! Closing date is Wednesday 18th though, so if you know of someone who might be good to help, do get them to contact me! And there's still the need to find somewhere with a computer and phone...
Sometimes I feel like I'm doing two full time jobs, but I'm getting more excited about the launch now it all seems to be coming together. Right, better go and decide on the canapés...
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Quiz raised £1000 for the GBHT!
Things have been so busy that I haven't blogged recently, but I wanted to celebrate our first fundraising quiz which raised £1000 and was kindly organised by the Young Fabians. Over 100 people attended and it was a pretty tough quiz organised around things that Gareth would have known a lot about, though even he wouldn't have got some of those questions! Thanks must go to Ellie Levenson and Richard Messingham for pulling it all together and to everyone who turned up and donated.
Now to turn to the organising for the big launch on the 2nd... Will post again soon.
Now to turn to the organising for the big launch on the 2nd... Will post again soon.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
First two Patrons confirmed - Brian Brivati and Tony Robinson
I'm delighted that Brian Brivati, Director of the John Smith Memorial Trust and former Professor of Contemporary History at Kingston University, has agreed to become a Patron of Gareth's History Trust. So too has Tony Robinson, the well-loved presenter of my favourite series - Time Team, and of course Baldrick in Blackadder.
Gareth and I would look forward to our Sundays watching Time Team, particularly if the programme had a Roman theme. There is nothing as exciting as watching the episode when the team uncovers a mosaic at the bottom of someone's garden in Cirencester. The thinking behind Time Team is similar to that behind Gareth's Trust which is to help make history more accessible to the public by bringing it alive in the here and now, rather than trying to find it only in the pages of books.
We also, along with much of the nation, loved to watch Blackadder, and Blackadder Goes Forth has one of the most poignant moments in British comedy when eventually they do go over the top - Blackadder's 'cunning plan' fails to help them as usual. Gareth was most moved by the way men of all classes were thrown together in the First World War and formed such strong bonds of loyalty during a time of such huge sacrifice. I think that pupils could watch worse things than that series of Blackadder to get a sense, albeit from a light-hearted perspective, of life in the trenches.
Gareth and I would look forward to our Sundays watching Time Team, particularly if the programme had a Roman theme. There is nothing as exciting as watching the episode when the team uncovers a mosaic at the bottom of someone's garden in Cirencester. The thinking behind Time Team is similar to that behind Gareth's Trust which is to help make history more accessible to the public by bringing it alive in the here and now, rather than trying to find it only in the pages of books.
We also, along with much of the nation, loved to watch Blackadder, and Blackadder Goes Forth has one of the most poignant moments in British comedy when eventually they do go over the top - Blackadder's 'cunning plan' fails to help them as usual. Gareth was most moved by the way men of all classes were thrown together in the First World War and formed such strong bonds of loyalty during a time of such huge sacrifice. I think that pupils could watch worse things than that series of Blackadder to get a sense, albeit from a light-hearted perspective, of life in the trenches.
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Tristram Hunt on school history trips in the Observer today
I very much agree with Tristram Hunt's article in the Observer today, which also flags up the fact we're setting up the Trust. He rightly raises the issue of the high costs of taking young people on school trips, particularly abroad. And I think that it's right that students should mainly visit scenes of British historical note as a way of transforming what often can be worthy teaching of the grey facts in a school classroom into colour.
One note of caution though - simply because taking young people abroad is expensive, increases carbon at a time when we need vitally need to be saving the planet, and might encourage them to learn about the history of America rather than the history of Britain, does not mean that those students from lower income backgrounds should be denied the opportunity to go abroad per se if that is what is being offered to other students who can afford it in state schools. I think the main problem with trips to New York, Barcelona or the Grand Canyon is that it reflects what parents think their children would prefer to do, rather than what would make sense educationally. It is this which needs to be tackled, rather than the trips themselves.
At our last trustees meeting we heard that even in inner city schools, many more parents somehow find the cash to fund four nights at EuroDisney rather than one night and day visiting the trenches and experiencing the sheer scale of the war memorials in Northern France. This suggests that there is more at work here than schools simply going for jollys in foreign lands - the pressure to be seen to give children a 'fun time' translates for many parents into the tried and tested formulas of novelty and glamour. Sadly, there needs to be a marked cultural shift in general for parents to understand the significance of why visiting the Great East Window at York Minster might be worth more for their child in the long-term than a trip to Alton Towers.
This raises a significant future challenge for Gareth's History Trust which is to ensure that when we fund school history trips, there is a significant support from parents for the trip, as well as pupils and teachers, otherwise the same groups of better-off children will continue to reap the benefits of our fascinating history.
One note of caution though - simply because taking young people abroad is expensive, increases carbon at a time when we need vitally need to be saving the planet, and might encourage them to learn about the history of America rather than the history of Britain, does not mean that those students from lower income backgrounds should be denied the opportunity to go abroad per se if that is what is being offered to other students who can afford it in state schools. I think the main problem with trips to New York, Barcelona or the Grand Canyon is that it reflects what parents think their children would prefer to do, rather than what would make sense educationally. It is this which needs to be tackled, rather than the trips themselves.
At our last trustees meeting we heard that even in inner city schools, many more parents somehow find the cash to fund four nights at EuroDisney rather than one night and day visiting the trenches and experiencing the sheer scale of the war memorials in Northern France. This suggests that there is more at work here than schools simply going for jollys in foreign lands - the pressure to be seen to give children a 'fun time' translates for many parents into the tried and tested formulas of novelty and glamour. Sadly, there needs to be a marked cultural shift in general for parents to understand the significance of why visiting the Great East Window at York Minster might be worth more for their child in the long-term than a trip to Alton Towers.
This raises a significant future challenge for Gareth's History Trust which is to ensure that when we fund school history trips, there is a significant support from parents for the trip, as well as pupils and teachers, otherwise the same groups of better-off children will continue to reap the benefits of our fascinating history.
Facebook page set up for Gareth's History Trust
I've set up a Facebook page for the Gareth Butler History Trust today. If you're a member of FB please do join! You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18107350177
May Bank Holiday weekend will always be a poignant one for me - for the last couple of years Gareth's cricket team would go on tour to Paris for the weekend. We had one particularly gorgeous venue we used to play in the grounds of a chateau outside Paris which had a fabulous little zoo. Even though we were in France, there would still be a tea urn, though cucumber sandwiches were often replaced with baguettes, Brie and paté.
Last year we played in Chantilly next to a polo ground. Friends of mine had lots of fun pointing out that Gareth had managed to convince me to combine our honeymoon road trip around the Loire Valley last year with the cricket tour. It was the most fitting end, however, to a beautiful trip. I'll always remember those sunny bank holiday weekends driving with the roof down along French country roads listening to Bruce Springsteen singing Cadillac Ranch.
May Bank Holiday weekend will always be a poignant one for me - for the last couple of years Gareth's cricket team would go on tour to Paris for the weekend. We had one particularly gorgeous venue we used to play in the grounds of a chateau outside Paris which had a fabulous little zoo. Even though we were in France, there would still be a tea urn, though cucumber sandwiches were often replaced with baguettes, Brie and paté.
Last year we played in Chantilly next to a polo ground. Friends of mine had lots of fun pointing out that Gareth had managed to convince me to combine our honeymoon road trip around the Loire Valley last year with the cricket tour. It was the most fitting end, however, to a beautiful trip. I'll always remember those sunny bank holiday weekends driving with the roof down along French country roads listening to Bruce Springsteen singing Cadillac Ranch.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)