Our Blog

Nancy Detchon

Jul 14, 2014

Anglo-Saxons at The Croft

Last Thursday, I returned to the Croft Primary School in Rugeley, Staffordshire, to deliver a workshop to Y5 to support the teaching of their ‘Treasure Island’ topic. Being only a few miles away from where the Staffordshire Hoard was found, meant that a focus on the Anglo-Saxons was perfect for this occasion. After considering what ‘treasure’ is, and discussing how even the most seemingly insignificant objects can be treasure for archaeologists, the children were ‘trained’ in

Nancy Detchon

May 28, 2014

Prehistoric Archaeology Workshops

I’m pleased to announce that over the past few weeks I have delivered my first archaeology workshops relating directly to the new primary history curriculum – namely “changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age” a.k.a. prehistory. Two of these covered the whole of prehistory – an overview from the Palaeolithic to the end of the Iron Age – one over a whole day, the other over an afternoon. That was some feat I can tell you! Of course, we couldn’t cover everything in

Nancy Detchon

Mar 25, 2014

Calling all KS2 teachers! Prehistory in the Primary Curriculum Online Survey

For the first time since the National Curriculum was put in place, prehistory is now part of the Primary History Curriculum. Of course, for us archaeologists this is good news; it is something for which the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has been campaigning for years. Recently, a group of like-minded archaeologists and educators met at The Hive in Worcester, to discuss how best we might be able to support teachers in an area of the curriculum they may never have taug

Children, Archaeology and Unexpected Interpretations

Nancy Detchon

Dec 6, 2013

Children, Archaeology and Unexpected Interpretations

Below is the edited transcript of a presentation I gave at Dearne Valley Archaeology Day in 2012. I’ve also uploaded it as a PDF document onto Academia.edu. Children, Archaeology and Unexpected Interpretations The Teletubby House I recently read a book, Unquiet Pasts (Koerner & Russell 2010), which focussed on how different people engage with and use archaeology and heritage in today’s world. In a chapter discussing a long term project involving children in archaeology, Tho

“Archaeology Day was awesome, inspiring and amazing!”

Nancy Detchon

Nov 19, 2013

“Archaeology Day was awesome, inspiring and amazing!”

This was the conclusion of the girls at Northampton High School! Let me tell you a little more about it… Thursday 14th November saw me and fellow archaeologist Ian, travelling down to Northampton to deliver an Archaeology day to KS1 and KS2 pupils at Northampton High School. (Ian also happens to be my husband – for those of you who didn’t know). Despite the dreaded traffic on the M1 and an accident near Watford Gap attempting to scupper our efforts to get there, we were able

Nancy Detchon

Sep 24, 2013

Anglo-Saxon Workshop at Atherton

I returned to St Richard’s Primary School in Atherton last week to deliver an Anglo-Saxon archaeology workshop. After training the children how to think like archaeologists and helping them to understand concepts such as stratigraphy through a variety of activities, we began to excavate a range of Anglo-Saxon objects. After closely analysing our finds, ranging from pottery and animal bones to spearheads and jewellery, we were able to show each other what we had found. We eve

Nancy Detchon

Apr 16, 2013

Trojan War in Lancashire!

We took the Trojan War to Lancashire and gave pupils at Calder Vale St John’s and Scorton C of E Primary Schools a morning to remember. After a few tasks to encourage the children to think like archaeologists, that is exactly what they became, as they excavated items usually found in Late Bronze Age Greece and the Troad. The children also had the opportunity to handle genuine Mycenaean pots – yes, that’s right – pots that are over 3000 years old and which had been generously

Nancy Detchon

Mar 12, 2013

Gifted and Talented

Lately, I have had quite a few requests to work with gifted and talented youngsters and high achievers, with bookings from as far away as Hounslow. Archaeology is the perfect vehicle for stretching young minds, as some teachers have realised. Through archaeology we can ask basic epistemological questions – How is knowledge created? How do we know what we know about the past? Likewise, critical thinking can be practised as we assess our own interpretations and those of esta

Nancy Detchon

Dec 3, 2012

Putting my new-found potting skills to the test!

I took my new found beaker-making skills with me when I last visited FitzHerbert Primary School in Fenny Bentley. Focussing the children on a particular task – in this case making Bronze Age beakers by making two thumb pots – really worked. The results were very rewarding, both for me as the facilitator of the session and for the children. If we’d had more time it may have proved useful to try two different techniques, coil-potting and thumb-potting (is there such a phrase

Nancy Detchon

Oct 15, 2012

What? When? How? Where? with Calow C of E Primary School

Year 5s at Calow C of E Primary School, Chesterfield had their first taste of archaeology on Friday. During the workshop – the first of a series of five – we concentrated on the question “What?”: What is archaeology?; what is the point of doing archaeology?; and what do archaeologists do with the evidence they find? Through a number of activities we got our ‘archaeological imaginations’ going as we attempted to interpret objects, both modern and ancient, and pretended we were

Nancy Detchon

Oct 12, 2012

FitzHerbert’s and the Peak District Award Part II

The FitzHerbert C of E Primary School in Fenny Bentley have just completed the second part of the Peak District Award. The excavation is complete, the barrow is more or less there and the ground has been prepared for sowing the seeds to create their wild flower meadow. Again, the children surpassed themselves in their presentation of everything they had done and learnt. This is what Mrs Froggatt, their class teacher, had to say about the experience: “Doing the archaeological

Nancy Detchon

Jul 22, 2012

Rainy walks, barrow building and the Peak District Award

The last week saw my continued work with the Park Rangers, Rose and Steve, at FitzHerbert Primary School in Fenny Bentley, culminating on Thursday 19th with the presentation of the 1st part of the Peak District Award to the KS2 children who had taken part. On Thursday 12th we began to dig in the school field. After a lesson in stratigraphy, the children were set to work, under the watchful eye of Steve Bell, de-turfing the patch that is to become a wild flower meadow. They

Nancy Detchon

Jun 29, 2012

Digging, barrow-building and the Peak District Award

I spent a lovely afternoon with pupils and teachers from FitzHerbert CE Primary School in Fenny Bentley yesterday. I was there with two National Park Rangers, Steve Bell and Rose Clarke as part of a new scheme with which the school is involved – the Peak District Award. To achieve this award the school is learning all about the special qualities of the National Park and as part of this will be improving their hay meadow and building a Bronze Age barrow in their school ground

Nancy Detchon

Mar 27, 2012

Schools visit the Arbor Low Environs Project

The first two days of the Arbor Low Environs Project dig this year have been a resounding success. I’m not so much talking about the archaeology here – although I’m sure many exciting things will be unearthed as the days go by -no, what I am talking about are the school visits we have had so far. I have had the pleasure and privilege to introduce and re-introduce many young people and their teachers to Arbor Low, Gib Hill and the wonderful world of archaeology. The children (

Nancy Detchon

Mar 12, 2012

Outreach at Arbor Low Environs Project

The week beginning the 25th March 2012 is the first week of the ALEP excavations this year and we have invited local schools to come and join us. We are so pleased with the response, with enquiries from Monyash Primary School, Curbar Primary School, Harpur Hill Primary School, Fairfield Endowed CE Junior School and Buxton Infant School, as well as Melland High School in Manchester and the The Institute of Life-Long Learning at the University of Sheffield. In fact there is onl

Nancy Detchon

Mar 1, 2012

Local schools to visit Arbor Low Environs Project

The Drs Parker Heath are currently very busy organising this year’s archaeological investigations close to Arbor Low and Gib Hill. The licenses from English Heritage have arrived, permissions from landowners have been given, but most excitingly local schools are beginning to sign up to come and have a tour around the ancient monuments, visit the dig site and get their hands dirty! So far we have heard from Monyash Primary School, Curbar Primary School, and Harpur Hill Primary

Nancy Detchon

Feb 13, 2012

Discovering Prehistoric Buxton!

The brief from Burbage Primary School was quite specific – a day that would take the children away from the school grounds, discover the archaeology of the area but without the need for transport. To fulfil this I developed a walking field-trip to some of the prehistoric sites of Buxton. The children, using picture clues, led the way to the site of Lismore Fields where Neolithic structures were excavated before modern housing was built in the 1980s. After considering the sim

Nancy Detchon

Feb 13, 2012

Romans in the Peak District

The activities carried out at St Anne’s RC Primary School were designed to complement the Y3/4 Romans topic. After discussing the Romans in the Peak District and looking at maps of Romano-British settlement in the area, the children enthusiastically excavated genuine Roman pottery out of sand trays. They took their excavated sherds, washed and recorded them and developed ideas of how they may have once looked and for what purposes they may have been used. At the end of the d

ENRICHMENT THROUGH ARCHAEOLOGY

Bringing Archaeology To You

Our Blog

Join Our Mailing List >>