STAFF and students at the Mackenzie Thorpe Centre buried a time capsule at the school this week, as part of a very special day of celebrations.

On Friday 1st April, representatives from NEAS, including patrons, representatives from local authority departments and members of the media, gathered at the school to officially mark the opening of the school, which first welcomed students in September 2020.

The school's official opening had to be delayed due to the pandemic but this week NEAS Patron Mackenzie Thorpe paid a visit to his namesake school where he unveiled a special artwork, titled 'Welcome to My World', gave a speech and helped to bury the time capsule in the grounds.

Teaching Assistant Irene Recseg led on the Time Capsule project and coordinated the items to be included from staff and pupils. These ranged from items relating to the Covid-19 pandemic, such as face masks and a lateral flow tests, to currency, paintings and articles about the school.

"Our pupils were asked if they would like to contribute by making or producing items to be placed into the capsule,” Irene says. “Each class teacher explained what the capsule was and helped with ideas of what to put in. It was lovely to see the pupils excited at the prospect of people digging it up in many years to come, and seeing what they had put in. 

“We talked about the 1p, 2p and 5p coins we put in, would those small coins still be of value in the future, or even in circulation at all? One pupil chose to add a train ticket from their 'travel training', because this would show how prices had increased, and by how much, in the future."

Irene adds: “We also thought it was a good idea to add items that are current, so Covid-related items such as masks, hand sanitiser, lateral flow tests, were ideal. The same applied to the ongoing war in Ukraine so we added an article about the situation.

It is a great honour to have Mackenzie Thorpe himself as Patron of NEAS and I added a couple of articles about him into the capsule. These included a little of his history and why he is our Patron.

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