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 away. Language used was appropriate for the age of children involved. Children were engaged right from the start.”
… and regarding the content of the workshop:
“Excellent – kept the children engaged throughout. Was suited perfectly to the work the children are involved with in the topic – Time Detectives. Reinforced some of their understanding but took them a step further. Fully engaged throughout the 2 hour workshop.”
“We thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. The children gained so much from it and have talked non-stop about what they did that morning. Dr Catherine was excellent with the children and we will definitely have a return visit.”
You see, even children in KS1 can benefit from an archaeology workshop. The KS1 workshops I have delivered lately have all been part of a wider ‘time-detectives’ topic and have involved artefacts from a range of periods from the Neolithic, to Ancient Egypt, to Ancient Greek, to Roman and Anglo-Saxon. They have also enabled literacy and numeracy skills to be applied in an engaging context.
With the changes to the Primary History curriculum and the requirement to teach pre-history at KS 2 just around the corner, introducing archaeology at KS1 is perhaps not a bad idea. After all, it is primarily through archaeology that we know anything about Britain before the Romans.
If you are interested in an KS1 archaeology workshop, please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss it further!