Wayland Community High School

At Wayland High school, The art department invited Culture of the Countryside to work with a Year 10 group on developing a sense of place and identity.  The objective was to reconnect young people living in the vicinity of Watton with their rich cultural heritage, in collaboration with the Wayland Heritage Project. The first day encouraged pupils to extend and reflect upon their own connections with the local countryside - using maps, and making word-based installations in the school grounds. This led to the idea of a local countryside walk, accompanied by local historians. The walk was valuable as an exercise in its own right, but also took in studies of local land use, the importance of churches for understanding ancestory, and management of the natural environment. Further art work and historical discussion were available to pupils back in the classroom.