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What was planned?

The project was a partnership between Oldham Compact Education Business Partnership, Age Concern, and the following schools: Blue Coat Secondary; Counthill Secondary; Crompton House Secondary; Royton and Crompton Secondary; High Barn Junior; Hodge Clough Junior; Mayfield Primary; and St.Joseph's RC Primary. The schools serve neighbourhoods of varied socio-economic background with patches of significant disadvantage.

Oldham Compact aimed to foster through the project a better understanding between older people and school students by involving them in a common task of enquiry into local history and personal experiences of the past.  The project was co-ordinated by Oldham Compact's Study Support Co-ordinator.  It was the judgement of the schools and Oldham Compact that comparatively more study support resources in the Borough in the past had been directed towards young people of lower attainment so the project focused on young people who were assessed to be of higher or average attainment. The exception to this was at Hodge Clough Junior School where it was decided that the project should focus on children with special educational needs.

What was done and when?

Around a hundred young people took part in the project, mainly Year 8 students from the Secondary schools and Year 6 from the Junior and Primary schools. Age Concern matched to the groups similar numbers of older people in their local area, many in their seventies or eighties, drawn mainly from sheltered housing groups, having advised against contact with residential homes.  The schools ran projects over a ten week period in 2000 and 2001 with weekly activities between one and two hours.

Examples of activities were:

• Time Line construction fitting world events into appropriate time slots.
• Paired ICT work on Internet access to second world war topics e.g. the experience of evacuees, war time food rationing.

Age Concern organised transport of the older people to venues. They made schools aware of the vulnerabilities of older people and gave advice on individual student visiting and ways of sustaining relationships and support. Their resources included an advice booklet on running a Reminiscence Group and also substantial curriculum support materials of print, photograph, videotape and slide collections.  The schools brought to the project their teaching expertise in promoting ICT skills, their classroom management experience in organising structured activities and their knowledge of individual children. They also brought their experience of curriculum organisation and content, developing resource packs for future use and feeding the outcomes of the project back into the schools.

What has the impact been?

The development of ICT skills was acknowledged by the young people and the schools. Frequently young people stressed the value to them of consolidating their skills by having to teach them to the older people. The schools also acknowledged the value of the project in stimulating an interest in History in their young people. The school staff said how much the project had helped the children to develop their social as well as ICT skills.

Noteworthy examples here were the ease with which they welcomed visitors, communicated with their partners and showed care for the frailer members of the group.  The schools had benefited from the range of teaching resources provided by Age Concern. In some cases there had been gains in the development of primary/secondary links. For example, Mayfield school had limited IT resources and they had benefited from the use of the superior facilities of their link Blue Coat School. The head teacher noted also the benefits of her primary school children being able to work alongside older students. The project had stimulated further co-operation, for example, a reading Partners initiative between the primary school and sixth form students from the secondary school. The project also contributed towards curriculum and resource development.

The older people also rated highest their enjoyment of social relationships and growth in understanding young people. In most cases they rated the development of ICT skills of less importance although they acknowledged their benefit from it. They emphasised strongly the value of the project for their own self-esteem, motivation and sense of being valued.  Age Concern stressed the importance of the project in motivating older people to take an active interest outside their own immediate communities. Staff cited as one example a previously very withdrawn person who was showing much greater alertness and general interest because of her involvement with the project.  Several of the older people said how much insight they had gained into young people of today – as one put it "learning their language".

What was learnt and what were the next steps?

Age Concern staff emphasised to the schools the importance of sustaining the relationships with older people. Schools involved were continuing the relationship with their older partners, for example inviting them to school events. Most importantly, Oldham Compact has secured further funding to develop the partnership with other schools.