Darlington primary school stages Black History Month exhibition with a twist

The exhibition included information on Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Arthur Wharton, Harriet Tubman and a modern favourite, Marcus Rashford.

What makes St John’s Academy different from many other schools doing similar projects, was the QR codes placed at each station, so that visitors, parents and pupils could scan the code with their phone and hear pupils talk about that particular person and why they were famous.

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The exhibition had a modern twist with the use of QR codes

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Peter Gibson MP was there to see what the children had worked on and said: “I think it’s fantastic. To be able to hear the children talk about these historical figures is really interesting and its testament to how much hard work has gone into this.

“I’m absolutely blown away.

“Each display is so detailed and you can tell the children have enjoyed working on this and letting their creativity flow.”

Headmaster, Marco Ramsay said: “Loads of schools have done similar things but we wanted to do something a bit different so we used the QR codes to make it interactive.”

Pupils explain to Peter Gibson MP what makes their Black History exhibition different. Picture: MARCO RAMSAY

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Each year group focused on one famous black person throughout history.

Heidi in Year 4 said: “It was really fun and it was better than just reading about it in books.”

Jessica in Year 5 said: “It was good to learn about these people because they changed the world.”

Leo in Year 6 said: “It was good to do something different because we can listen and read and also look at the art we made.”

Rory in Year 2 said: “We learnt about what these people did and why they are famous.”

Tia in Year 6 said: "Next year we could do something even bigger and maybe do a big display for each person all over one wall."

Pupils using the QR codes to learn from other year group's displays

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