Boarshaw Pupils Hit the Silver Screen

Boarshaw Primary School pupils during the filming

Pupils from Boarshaw Primary School have starred in a film that shows them at work in their community.

The children had taken part in a community programme run by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), the company in charge of the town's council houses, over the past year, and the scheme was chosen to be part of the film by the Northern Housing Consortium.

Sue Kershaw, RBH’s Communities First Co-ordinator, said: “It is a huge honour to have been chosen to showcase our Community Kids Programme and we would like to say a huge thank you to the schools and staff who have been involved in the project, and in particular, to all the children who gave such positive responses and helped make the project a huge success."

The "RBH Community Kids" programme was developed with five Rochdale schools to encourage children to identify with the community they live in, have a greater understanding of the impact of their behaviour on their community and to respect and value their own and everyone else’s contributions towards making it a better place to live.
The Northern Housing Consortium, a body made up of all different housing organisations in the north of England, asked RBH if they would be interested in the competition to be part of the good practice film to be screened at a large conference to be attended by housing organisations, government officials and other interested organisations.

"RBH Community Kids" won through and was selected to be featured at the conference under the theme “Quality of Life/Communities and Citizenship”.

The film crew visited Boarshaw school two weeks ago and spent three hours filming the 8 and 9year olds recreating a whole range of activities from the "RBH Community Kids" programme they had received earlier in the year. This included talking with local tenants about living in the community, going out on an estate walkabout to look at what they liked and disliked and reciting a rap about “community” that the children had written themselves.

The film crew also interviewed Headteacher, Steve Williamson and Year 4 teacher, Kathryn Thornburn, staff from RBH and the children themselves to find out about RBH Communities First. They were very impressed with what they saw and heard and the film will be featured at the Northern Silver Screen in November.