This year marks the 225th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. To commemorate the event, schools in the University's primary programme will be inviting year 6 pupils to enter our stop-motion competition. Using prints from the Waddesdon Manor collection of prints, pupils have to make a stop-motion animation of up to 1 minute about the start of the French Revolution.

A Lego animation from a previous project can be seen on You-Tube here.

To give you more information about the French Revolution, you can listen to a series of podcasts by Dr Katherine Astbury from the Department of French Studies.

Podcast 1: The Ancien Régime [pre-Revolutionary France)

Podcast 2: The Estates general and the Fall of the Bastille

Podcast 3: The Constitution and the Royal Family's flight to Varennes

Podcast 4: The Fall of the Monarchy

Podcast 5: The Terror

Podcast 6: Post-Thermidor and the Directory

To offer a starting point for the animations, here is a powerpoint file of prints from Waddesdon Manor to inspire you. If you want to see more prints, you can search the collection by going to the Waddesdon website.

The powerpoint slides of the talk I gave in schools, including links to the Lady Gaga and Horrid Histories videos are available here.

Teachers

A lesson plan and story board template can be downloaded for you to use in class. A powerpoint who wants to be a millionaire game on the fall of the Bastille is also available here.