Time Travelling with Royal Grammar School Springfield
- 28th August 2015
Last term we were contacted by a teacher from the Royal Grammar School (RGS) Springfield. Their Year 5 pupils were studying the history of Worcester as that term’s topic, using the idea of a Time Travel Agency needing information for a new brochure. The teacher asked us whether we could help, and the answer was of course yes. We have a wide range of information about the county, dating from recent years and reaching right back through to the stone age, with documents, photos, artefacts and information about local archaeological discoveries. We arranged to run four sessions with them to give them a chance to explore all we have on offer.
Community project Officer Rob Hedge demonstrates prehistoric flint
The children explored a range of themes from prehistoric settlements, landscapes and technologies; to the Roman world of the military and its empire of towns and cities; to the early medieval lives of villages and the cultures expressed through burial ritual, and finally to the high medieval periods of the Plantagenet and Tudor dynasties.
Pupils look through 16th century book detailing Queen Elizabeth I’s visit to Worcester
All four sessions employed hands-on, practical and visual resources, using artefacts, flint knapping, maps and reconstruction paintings to illustrate local and national archaeological sites. The children were very enthusiastic and we feel that this is partly because of the use of local evidence to investigate the KS2 curriculum-related themes of historical understanding: chronology, continuity & change, enquiry & perspective.
We received great feedback from the RGS teachers: “Thank you so much for all the fantastic sessions you led for us. What a huge variety of content you covered and a wide range of artefacts you shared with us”.
An RGS Springfield pupil
If your school would like us to provide one or more sessions of a similar nature, dating from any historical period, please get in touch. Whether it is for archaeological exploration or the investigation of primary historical sources within our archive collections here at Explore the Past at The Hive, we will be happy to help.
For more details on the workshops available to schools please see our website or email us on explorethepast@worcestershire.gov.uk.
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