'Forgotten Heroes' - how pupil designers created a national remembrance campaign

Falinge Park High School in Rochdale, UK responded to the RSA’s ‘Local Community’ Design brief with a campaign exploring and celebrating the contributions of Black and Asian soldiers in World War II - creating a lasting legacy and learning outcomes for pupils across the North-West.

At the heart of the education work of the Comino Foundation is the Socratic belief that ‘education should be the lighting of a flame; not the filling of a vessel’. We believe that real-life learning, developed through partnerships with people and places in worlds beyond school can motivate young people to discover their passion for education and for a positive future. We have a proud history of collaboration with the RSA, and the Pupil Design Awards (PDAs) align closely with our community’s educational values and practice.

Falinge Park High School sits at the centre of one of the North West’s most diverse and disadvantaged communities with 43 different languages spoken within the school. 38.8% of Falinge Park High School students receive free school meals and 76.35% of students speak English as an Additional Language. 41% of students are recognised as Pupil Premium and 15.3% of Falinge Park High School students have SEND status.

In 2021, Falinge Park High School Citizenship, Religious Education and PSHE teacher Vacas Ahmed led a team of the school’s inspirational ‘Diversity Ambassadors’ to develop an award-winning idea in response to a PDA brief to develop a product or service that would promote inclusive attitudes in school and the wider local community.

The group decided to investigate the hidden contribution of thousands of BAME young men from across the Commonwealth who fought for Britain and the Allies in World War Two and to develop a platform that could make this a public campaign that pupils and staff in school could get behind.

Ambassadors reached out to locate and interview ‘Forgotten Heroes’ from across the town of Rochdale, and then to create a website annexe with personal oral history narratives and video interviews about the war experience of these extraordinary veterans.

A gold-award winning project with a legacy

The campaign was not only covered by local press, but became a national campaign adopted by British Futures, and reported on in all the major broadsheets across the UK. Not surprisingly the group won the RSA PDA Gold Award for 2021 and both pupils and staff attended the RSA’s superb awards event at their London headquarters where they shared how inspirational the experience of working on the project had been for them and for the wider school community.

However, the story did not end at the RSA PDA Awards Ceremony. Recognising the benefits from the project for Falinge Park High School, the school’s Director of Cultural Capital, Simon De Courcey, suggested taking the project model to other schools in the NWCC community to run a collaborative multi-school version in 2022 and 2023.

Simon worked with Citizenship, PHSE and History teachers from Sacred Heart RC Primary School, Abraham Moss Community Primary School, Ladybridge High School and St Gabriel’s RC High School and their pupil communities to drive a larger and even more impactful project during this academic year.

In each participating school a class or year group of pupils coordinated a call-out for their local ‘Forgotten Heroes’ and were responsible for interviewing them to develop and promote their story. This time the impact of the stories was amplified through the creation of artworks, exhibitions and videos which have become iconic talking points within each school’s local community.

Learning outcomes for pupils

• Through the project both high school and primary pupils gained an understanding of the historical context of the World Wars and explicitly considered the approaches, relevant research methods and required skills for this project at a level appropriate for their key stage.
• Pupils from Falinge Park High School, Sacred Heart RC Primary, Ladybridge High School understood and celebrated the diversity of the British Armed forces and are able to share their understanding across school and into their own local community.
• Pupils from Falinge Park High School collaborated with The Royal British Legion, British Futures and Rochdale's religious leaders.
• Pupils from Abraham Moss Community Primary, worked closely with Manchester’s Jewish Museum to create an exhibition which looked at the experience of Jewish children in Germany during World War Two; alongside presenting their work at an event attended by both Jewish and Muslim communities and elders at the Cheetham Hill Synagogue.
• Pupils from Sacred Heart Community Primary worked with local graffiti celebrity, Aske and filmmaker Dan Tewe to produce a building-sized mural of their ‘Forgotten Heroes’ on one of the schools’ walls.

What the teachers thought

About the North West Comino Consortium (NWCC)

The North West Comino Consortium (NWCC) is a Community of Practice funded and managed by the small Comino Foundation team to work with partner schools across Greater Manchester who share our ethos and aspiration for broad, balanced and pupil centred education.

The consortium partners work together to pilot projects, programmes and pedagogies that help young people experience learning in settings that link the curriculum to real life.

Get your school involved in the Pupil Design Award

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