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Nancy Detchon

Mar 18, 2014

Time Detectives in the North East…

It was up to County Durham that I travelled last week, to meet the time detectives of The Links Primary School in Stockton-on-Tees, and what fantastic time detectives they were! I really love what I do and to hear the comments from the teachers that suggest they and their pupils love it as much as I do – well, there’s nothing better! This is what Miss Daly, one of the teachers involved, wrote to me regarding the presentation of the workshop: “Children warmed to you straight a

Nancy Detchon

Mar 18, 2014

KS1 Archaeology!

I had a brilliant time recently at St John’s Primary School in Sandbach Heath. I was thrilled by the sea of eager faces grinning up at me as I explained how archaeology was “rubbish” and demonstrated how archaeologists excavate artefacts. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, but I am repeatedly amazed at how children as young as 5 and 6 years old can engage with the subject of archaeology and contribute so thoughtfully to the workshops. I could tell you all about it

Nancy Detchon

Jan 15, 2014

The Trojans back at Derby High School!

Well, ok, this workshop took place way back in September 2013, but I now have some photos to share with you and have a found a few minutes to sit down and write about it! The workshop, designed to support the Y9s topic on the Trojan War, followed much the same format as the previous year (see The Trojan War at Derby High School: The day began with the aim of introducing archaeology and the way archaeologists think with two activities – Archaeology is Rubbish and Archaeologis

“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

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

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

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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