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Nancy Detchon

Mar 11, 2013

Twentieth Century Archaeology

I recently delivered a workshop to the whole of Brockwell Nursery and Infant School in Chesterfield. The theme was the 1920s onwards – not often a period of time that comes to mind when you think of archaeology. However, as I always say, archaeology is about the material culture of the past and, as such, everything up until yesterday is fair game! And what a great day we had. I think I have said this before somewhere, but I am always blown away by how much children as youn

Nancy Detchon

Dec 3, 2012

KS1 in Biddulph and Buxton

Working with KS1 children requires adapting a standard workshop without losing the integrity of a ‘genuine’ archaeological experience. In other words, I work hard to deliver workshops that are engaging and accessible to young minds, whilst not allowing it to turn into a ‘treasure hunt’ or ‘lucky-dip’ type of activity. It is also important not to limit children: I am very often amazed by the grasp some 4 & 5 year olds have on the concept of the past and how we can say someth

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

Sep 29, 2012

The Trojan War at Derby High School.

“Thank you so much for the Archaeology Workshop on Monday 24 September. Having hosted several workshops in school (though never for Archaeology!), I was struck by your outstanding level of preparation: the resources were superb; the day was very well pitched, structured and timed; everything was beautifully tailored to the work the students are already doing on Troy. This is not always the case! I cannot thank you enough for the support you have given us in the delivery of ou

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

Apr 8, 2012

Easter Sunday digging

Thanks to Vicki, Ian, Matthew and Robbie for joining me and my children today and for all their hard work. I hope they enjoyed themselves as much as we enjoyed having them on site. Whilst the other Ian and Lesley drew sections and figured out contexts in the main field, the rest of us began to tie up loose ends in the Horse Field. I never knew backfilling could be such fun but Gabriel, Leila, Matthew and Robbie loved it! Although Matthew and Robbie won’t be there in the next

Nancy Detchon

Apr 5, 2012

Arbor Low Environs Project – Back to Work!

All systems go! Tomorrow, the Arbor Low Environs Project Open Day will go ahead as planned so please do come along and visit us. For those groups whose tours were cancelled: I will be contacting you all, via various means, to see if any of you can come on Sunday 8th afternoon (Easter Sunday) or Monday 9th am or pm. http://www.arborlowenvironsproject.org/2012/04/05/progress-update-22-2/ #excavation #children #HomeEducation #ArborLow #Easter #education #PeakDistrict #Archaeolog

Nancy Detchon

Apr 5, 2012

Snow!

Unfortunately, the Arbor Low Environs Project has been put on hold due to the snow. We have been told that at Upper Oldhams Farm the snow has reached over the walls! This has meant that we have had to cancel group visits for the rest of this week. We will be keeping our eye on the weather today to see if the Open Day will go ahead tomorrow and we are talking to farmers to see about whether we can continue the dig into next week and reschedule some of the visits. We will keep

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

Mar 1, 2012

Dearne Valley Archaeology Day 2012

Yesterday, 25th February 2012, saw the 2nd Dearne Valley Archaeology Day at Wath Trinity Methodist Church. What a great day! I heard some very interesting papers on the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service (Andy Lines), the (missing!) Minoan town at Knossos (Colin Merrony), community archaeology (Tim Cockerell), charred plant remains (Angela Walker), stable isotopes results from the Ukraine (Malcolm Lillie), Archaeology at Staveley Hall (Mike McCoy), excavations at Vimy Ridge

Nancy Detchon

Feb 16, 2012

Buxton Area Home Education Group

On Friday 10th February, I visited parents and children from the Buxton Area Home Education Group with my archaeological tools and artefacts for a 1 hour workshop. After receiving a lovely warm welcome, I introduced the group to the idea of stratigraphy and set them a task of deciding which artefacts belonged to which layer. They thought hard about this, including whether some of shiny gold items were necessarily newer than other items less shiny. I was also given a few thing

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

Nancy Detchon

Feb 13, 2012

Hollinsclough Primary School

Hollinsclough is a very small village school which has opened its doors to home educators and their families every other Friday. The workshops were carried out over two of these Fridays with children ranging from 4 to 14 years. We considered stratigraphy, the Law of Superposition, tried out archaeological tools, and excavated artefacts ranging from Neolithic scrapers and Roman mortaria to recent door numbers. We washed what we had found and recorded details about them on for

Nancy Detchon

Feb 13, 2012

Sheffield Elective Home Education Group

A flexible approach was needed with a group so disparate in age and previous knowledge, but everyone was able to get their hands dirty as soon as possible after a brief introduction to the tools of the trade. Luckily for the home educators, Highfields Adventure Playground in Sheffield, where they meet once a week, did not mind us digging up their grounds. The children soon found many artefacts, such as hinges and cupboard door handles. We were able to consider what they were

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