School trips will never be dull again thanks to Hackney Wow guide

Little monsters: children run riot in Springfield Park as part of their research for the guidebook. Photograph: Hackney Wow.

For people of a certain generation school trips are synonymous with hours spent sitting on a coach stuck in traffic on the M1 and droning “Why are we waiting…” while feeling bored to tears, followed by a severely anticlimactic visit to the Verulamium Museum in St Albans.

But why do some schools insist on schlepping pupils long distances when there are loads of brilliant places barely a walk, let alone a coach journey, away from their doors?

This is particularly true in Hackney, which is a great place for children of all ages.

Clapton mum Minna Harrison, a graphic designer by trade, is passionate about school trips and has been running a project to produce a children’s guide to Hackney with help from poet Michael Rosen and 240 pupils at Rushmore Primary School, which her three daughters attend.

Other famous names involved in the scheme have included artist Emily Tracy, illustrators Becky Baur and Liz Loveless and photographers Gideon Mendel and Crispin Hughes.

The guide is called Hackney Wow! The kids’ guide to places to see and things to do, and thousands of rather beautifully designed copies have been printed in magazine form and distributed across the borough.

The Hackney Wow! website contains reviews of the Laburnum Boat Club, Hackney Marshes Adventure Park, the Ministry of Stories and Sutton House.

The introduction sets the tone for this imaginative project, asking: “Did you know that a famous lion tamer is buried in Stoke Newington? Or that there’s a secret shop for monsters in Hoxton Street? Or that a crocodile might be hiding in the River Lea?

“Hackney is an amazing place. It’s full of fantastic things to do and places to explore. And we don’t just mean parks and playgrounds. We’re talking about floating bookshops, crazy markets, historic houses, spooky cemeteries, grow-your-own gardens and exploded bomb craters.”

Ms Harrison, 42, received funding through the Rushmore Primary School Parents’ and Teachers’ Association as well as cash from the Big Lottery Fund.

She said: “We explored 11 places in Hackney from the children’s point of view, and all the children were working with creative people, so for each place we would have a project led by an artist or film maker or illustrator.

“The kids could explore things from a creative angle at the same time as exploring the place.

“School day trips to places can be expensive and you sometimes need a coach to get there, but all the places we reviewed are very local and easy to reach.”

Ms Harrison hopes to run the project again and is organising for ten children from Rushmore and Colvestone Primary Schools to review events during the Dalston Children’s Festival starting on Saturday 25 May.

They will be supported by journalist Emma Cox and writer and photographer Helena Smith.

The Hackney Wow reviews and photographs will be exhibited at Dalston CLR James Library later this year.

For more information see the Hackney Wow website here.