History in the making with Paganel Primary School

Birmingham Central Library will be hosting a photographic exhibition – ‘Pagalympics 2012’ from today until 17^th September – documenting a week long programme of workshops and sporting events at Paganel Primary School.

Vanley Burke, Birmingham Photographer and social historian, was at Paganel Primary School for the closing ceremony to congratulate the children on their achievements over the week: “My Mum and Dad gave me a camera when I was 10 or 11 and I started taking photos.  I enjoyed it so much that’s what I wanted to be and that’s how I began photography.”

Paganel also hosted the Kalaborate project, devised to deliver a programme of visual arts activities in celebration of the 2012 Olympic Games and commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Jamaican independence.

‘Pagalympics’ was the second whole school heritage event for Paganel Archives, working with parents and our partners, including Birmingham Archives and Heritage.

The school employed a range of creative practitioners over the week to explore the Olympics and record and document our stories relating to our sporting tradition, the Olympics and Olympic values.

Paganel School was awarded Heritage Lottery funding for Paganel Archives – an archive which will tell the story of the school and its local community of Weoley Castle through photographs, oral histories, film, artwork and documents.

Every class at Paganel School has visited Birmingham Archives and has received oral history training from outreach workers. Training will continue for archiving, cataloguing, selecting and conserving material.

Nikki Thorpe, Creative Learning Officer from Birmingham Archives and Heritage said: “We are developing some great archivists at the school whose work will provide a fantastic record for future generations, as you can see in this exhibition.”

Visit their blog to find out more about what the children thought about Pagalympics:

http://www.paganelschool.com/blog/