Education: Former Education Projects

Earlier projects organised by the Trust’s Education Committee include art and drama.

Drama is a good way to involve pupils and students in York’s history, especially in its famous Mystery Plays. The York Cycle of Mystery Plays has a tradition dating back over 700 years. Performed from wagons, the guilds of York would present stories from The Creation to The Last Judgement, at the church festival of Corpus Christi(late May to late June). Having ended around 1570, the plays were revived in 1951 and have taken place every three or four years since. York Guilds last performed the Mystery Play Cycle on 13 and 20 July 2014.

York Civic Trust has also joined in. In 2012 a party of members attended the fascinating performance in Museum Gardens.

For the 2010 York Mystery Plays cycle the Trust worked with 25 young pupils from Lord Deramore’s School, Heslington, who performed the story of Moses and Pharaoh in the garden of the Treasurer’s House (National Trust) on Sunday 11 July. To see more pictures of Lord Deramore’s School in rehearsal and performing their play, click here.
In the previous Mystery Play year, 2006, the Trust was pleased to organise a performance of The Fall of the Angels involving over 60 secondary pupils from seven schools.

We have collaborated with the University of York by instituting a prize for the best student in the Department of Archaeology’s Cultural Heritage Management Masters programme. In January 2015  Charlotte Paddock received her MA and her Trust award for her dissertation about Mongolian yurts. (pictured aside with her Head of Dept)

In 2007 the Civic Trust organised a Georgian Ball for York sixth formers: see this page.

Art

Primary school children were invited to paint their favourite views of York as part of the major exhibition ‘Views of York’ in 2012. There were over 300 entries from 11 primary schools in York and the standard was extremely high.
Winners of the competition were Christian Cain, Minster School with his painting The Minster on a Windy Day; Rosie Carter, Lakeside School with her painting The Shambles; Kevin Chirayil, Lord Deramore’s School with his painting The Bridge of York; Amy Foster, St Paul’s School with her painting In a Different Light; Molly Hazelwood, St Paul’s School with her painting St Mary’s Abbey and Daniel Hicks, The Minster School with his painting Storm approaching the Chapter House. The winning pictures were also published in the catalogue of the exhibition.

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