A PRIMARY school in York turned in to a who’s who from history as part of a day to raise the subject’s profile.

St Aelred’s RC in Tang Hall Friday was an historic day for the pupils when they held their ‘Dead Famous Day’.

Pupils were asked to research a famous person from the past and come to school dressed as them and about 180 youngsters from Years 1-6 joined in dressing as everyone from Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I to David Bowie and Princess Diana.

Children took part in a parade in assembly during the morning and each class got up on stage to show off their costumes and throughout the day gave presentations to their classmates to show the research they had done.

Year 3 teacher and the school’s history coordinator, Rebecca Whincup, who came dressed as author Beatrix Potter, said every class in school took part except reception.

York Press:

Mrs Whincup said: “There’s often a perception that history is old and stuffy, but the day was about dispelling that myth.

“The children were very creative and produced posters, leaflets and even expertly made Power Point presentations to present their knowledge.

“One pupil came as Einstein because he had a T-shirt with Einstein written on in and wanted to know who he was. Another had read about Anne Frank so came dressed as her.

“The day was a real success.

“The children have been engaged throughout the planning and preparation for the day and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

“Just the fact that they’d taken the learning on themselves, they just had fun with it.

“They were asking each other who they had come dressed as and finding out about so many different characters from history.

“It’s something I think we’ll definitely do again, whether we do it every year or every other year I’m not sure, but it’s been brilliant.”

Elysia, one of the Year 3 pupils said: “I think it’s really fun because we get to see how people from the olden days looked by dressing up and showing each other costumes.”