History Festival

On June 25th 2022 we hosted the second Leicester History Festival at LGS. The day involved a combination of speakers, activities, workshops, presentations and displays, mainly coalescing around the broader theme of 'Empires'. Among the highlights were former Sunday Times Far East correspondent Michael Sheridan speaking on the history of Hong Kong. We also had author and Radio 4 broadcaster Jeffrey Boakye speaking on the History of Music and Black People in Britain as well as historian Jim Butler speaking about the Leicester Museum's upcoming exhibition on Ugandan Asians in Britain. We heard author Professor Archie Brown speak on Russia and the Cold War, with material drawn from his book. Falconry displays, World War One workshops and VR headset workshops kept children of all ages entertained!

Aims

Under the strapline, 'New stories, Global Empires' the aim of LHF22 was to showcase a more inclusive and diverse global history of Empires ranging from the British Empire, Russia, the Classical World, Britain in Hong Kong all within the setting of a traditional history festival.

Success factors were a good audience size and engagement from the community, as well as LGS school pupils.

Background

Recognising the growing trend to open up wider historical narratives into education, the Head of History at LGS thought this was a good opportunity to present these voices to students and the wider public. The geopolitical element was also conceived from seeing how historical Empires were shaping contemporary conflicts such as the Ukraine/Russia situation and the political protests which led to refugees coming to Britain from Hong Kong. We had previously devised Leicester History Festival in 2018 to mark the Centenary of the end of the First World War. This was an opportunity to continue the Festival following the disruption owing to Covid.

Resources

The festival used the whole school site, about 7 teaching staff plus Site Services/Catering. It was a whole day event. The event was given a £5k budget from within the History Department budget. The majority of the planning and organisation was led by the HoD and another senior teacher, with some support from other members of the Department.

Impact

Those who came spoke of the event in glowing terms and people thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Many gave very positive feedback about the School and the work LGS do. Many enjoyed the chance to see the School opened up and in operation.

Pupil Involvement

Over 30 pupils in Years 10-13 were involved (mainly Y12) with manning the festival as festival coordinators/book sellers/photographers. 

Numbers attending were not formally counted but were estimated to be around 300 members of the public.

Frequency

This is hoped to be a biennial event.