West Rise, School by the Marsh documents the materially driven curriculum in action at West Rise Junior School in 2016.
Situated on the outskirts of Eastbourne, then Headteacher Mike Fairclough established a curriculum inspired by the Bronze Age in response to the school’s proximity to the site of the second-largest Bronze Age settlement in Europe. With the help of the pupils, the school constructed a replica roundhouse and hosted a flock of sheep, a herd of water buffalo and over a million black bees. Since, the school devotes much of its time to learning outdoors, with the pupils building fires, cooking, constructing tools and even smelting metal.