The Creek Trust runs a schools education programme, led by Gulliver Immink, to bring awareness and knowledge of Faversham Creek, its maritime history and heritage, to Primary Schools.
This was an initiative started in 2013 by the late much-missed Simon Foster. One of its core activities has been to bring ‘Ottar’, the half-sized copy of the Graveney Boat, to the local primary schools. It gives children and staff an appreciation of boat building and what incredible explorers people were 800 years ago. It doesn’t stop there. Modern boat building is demonstrated at the Purifier Building, and children have been able to board the iconic Thames barge ‘Repertor’ whenever possible.
Ospringe School came to The Purifier Building in May and Ethelbert School in June. On both occasions they were introduced to the superb St Ayles skiffs community boat building project by Alan Thorne, the gifted master boatbuilder and initiator of the project, as well as taking a walk down the Creek to learn something of the history and activity that used to take place in the Port of Faversham.
Sharon Calzada, the lead teacher at Ethelbert, who is very supportive of what FCT is doing, wants her class (about 30 children) to learn about the maritime history and heritage of the Creek. She wants the children to stop at several places along the Creek, to learn a bit about the buildings, the jetties and quays, tides and to make drawings etc. The children at Ethelbert school have since developed a Creek Project Board labelled ‘Past, Present, Future’.
