Bradford Cathedral holds Celebration for Community Heritage Volunteers 2022

Our youngest Cathedral volunteers are children from Lapage Primary School. Since 2018 the school has worked in partnership with the Cathedral education team to provide volunteer peer educators. This year 23 children aged 9-10 years volunteered to work with children from other schools at the Cathedral. In their role is as Community Heritage Volunteers (CHVs) they guide children (and adults) around the Cathedral and teach them about Bradford, its people, Christianity and the importance of the Cathedral to people of all faiths and none.

Since January they have spent a total of four and a half days working at the Cathedral. The rest of the children in Year 5 at Lapage have also been involved this year for the first time and have produced artwork which is on display in the shop area and in Saint Aidan’s Chapel. This depicts the children’s experiences of growing up in Bradford, the pandemic and celebrates Bradford, its heritage, communities, culture, villages and industry, based on the City of Culture 2025 theme ‘Our Time, Our Place’.

This artwork was produced by children aged 9 and 10, from Lapage Primary School, in April 2022, as a response to their experience of living and growing up in Bradford during the Covid Pandemic. More of Lapage’s Bradford inspired artwork, exploring their place, as it is in their time, may be viewed in St Aidan’s Chapel from the 6th June 2022.

Our Place, Our Time!

The CHV’s year finished with a celebration event at the Cathedral, with teachers, families and friends on the 6th June.  With every volunteer receiving a certificate of excellence for their hard work and of course enjoying a celebratory slice of cake!

Banners by Lapage Primary School Year 5

Three banners were created that mirror the three hanging tapestries in St. Aidan’s Chapel.

Our Time, Our Place!

1. Communities

We chose to celebrate the communities within Bradford, first, by depicting our Lapage Primary School logo, along with our motto, ‘Learning together’.  Second, we depicted churches and mosques, to show some of the various religions that are part of our community.  Thirdly, we chose to include Bradford City FC as recognition of how various sports bring our community together.  Next, we acknowledged Bradford University as a symbol of all the learning opportunities we have access to within Bradford.  Finally, the children chose to show the district as a whole, encompassing what community means to them.

2. Heritage, Villages and Industry

We chose to celebrate our heritage and the Industrial Revolution with a focus on Saltaire.  This banner begins at the top with an image of Salt’s Mill.  Following the images down the banner, you can see the River Aire, along with the trees which symbolize the surrounding countryside and the park areas.  Finally, you have some of the terraced houses found on the streets of Saltaire.

3. Celebrating Bradford 

For this banner, the children were asked to pick some of their favourite things about Bradford that they wanted to celebrate.  Therefore, at the top of this banner you have celebrations of Broadway and the shopping experiences it offers.  The beautiful light features that they had on display at Christmas were the inspiration for this top picture.  Next, you have the geometric, black and white patterns of the floor in the Wonder Lab at the Science and Media Museum.  One of the children’s favourite areas on a recent school trip as part of Science Week!  Then they wanted to show their work on the Industrial Revolution, and their understanding of how this had a drastic impact on the development of Bradford, by including a mill in their picture.  Finally, particularly during and after the pandemic, the children were keen to show their love of the parks and green spaces that Bradford has to offer.

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