Muchelney Abbey, which lies two miles south of Langport, was once a landmark in the Somerset Levels and still has much to offer its visitors – history lovers in particular will enjoy this fascinating site but there is also plenty for families to do.
Citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship Studies is concerned with the kind of society we live in and want to influence and develop. It covers, too, the role of the public and private organisations in the process. School courses help prepare students to become active citizens. The best of them promote students’ personal and social development, and make them more self-confident and responsible, in the classroom and beyond.
All external examination courses emphasise developing awareness of the role of citizens in a variety of contexts.
Just about any educational visit will contribute to the students’ exploration of new experiences and new ideas about being a ‘citizen’, but venues and activities that bring students into contact with other communities, other social contexts and other attitudes will be particularly exciting. Many museums and venues specialise in giving hands-on experiences of what some aspects of life in earlier centuries was actually like. These tend to be attractive to primary school groups.
Secondary groups often visit civic centres and attend local council meetings. Both primary and secondary groups will be welcome at churches, chapels, synagogues, mosques and temple, some of which offer programmes of talks and exhibitions. In cities this is relatively easy to arrange but even in rural communities priests and lay church people are prepared to help schools.
The Citizenship Foundation would be an excellent starting point. It claims to help 80% of secondary schools to nurture citizenship, and sets out to inspire young people to contribute to society. The Association for Citizenship Teaching also provides advice and teaching resources, while the National Centre for Citizenship and the Law delivers law and justice education at national heritage sites.
Main organisations:
Association for Citizenship Teaching
National Centre for Citizenship and the Law (NCCL)
Inclusion: NASEN
Thought of visiting?
The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green
National Trust Museum of Childhood, Sudbury, Derbyshire
Venues for this Curriculum
Sometimes described as ‘the islands at the edge of the world’, the archipelago of St Kilda is located 41 miles west of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. Formed from the rim of an ancient volcano, it is the remotest part of the British Isles.
The Falconry Centre contains many species of birds of prey, flown by the resident Falconer. You are able to fly some of the beautiful birds yourself.
The Cistercian abbey of Hailes was founded in 1246 in Gloucestershire by the Earl of Cornwall in thanks for surviving a shipwreck.
The Clink Prison Museum is built upon the original site ofThe Clink Prison, which dating back to 1144 was one of England’s oldest and most notorious prisons.
Among the most complete and impressive monastic ruins in Norfolk of a Benedictine priory with a well-documented history. The nave, with its splendid 13th century west front and great bricked-up window, is now the parish church, displaying a screen with medieval saints over painted with Protestant texts.
Originally 5 metres (16 feet) high and weighing some 16.75 tonnes, this is Cornwall's largest and heaviest prehistoric monolith.
This massive stone stands near the summit of the St Breock Downs, offering beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and across to the sea.
The impressive remains of an abbey of Cistercian 'white monks', including towering fragments of its 13th century church, infirmary and 14th century abbot's lodging.
Bertram de Verdun, Lord of Alton, an important local nobleman at the time, founded a Cistercian monastery in 1176 for the salvation of the souls of his family.
Alton Castle is a Catholic Education Centre in rural Staffordshire, just up the road from Alton Towers.
Wolvesey has been an important residence of the wealthy and powerful Bishops of Winchester since Anglo-Saxon times. Standing next to Winchester Cathedral, the extensive surviving ruins of the palace date largely from the 12th-century work of Bishop Henry of Blois.
Remains of a grammar school for church choristers, founded in the mid-15th century by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, the builder of nearby Tattershall Castle (National Trust).
Tattershall College was built in 1460, four years after the death of its patron, Lord Cromwell, and was completed by William of Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester.
Woodhenge is well worth a visit, especially if you are also heading to the nearby World Heritage Site of Stonehenge (located approximately 2 miles away).
Dating from 2300 BC, Woodhenge is thought to have marked a particular stage in the evolution of human religious belief and community organisation. This found a more permanent form in nearby Stonehenge.
Blackburn Cathedral is one of England's newest Cathedrals, yet it is one of the country's oldest places of Christian worship.
Well-preserved 15th-century gatehouse, the sole survivor of a small Benedictine priory. A miniature 'pele-tower' containing two storeys of comfortable rooms, it later became a fortified vicarage, a defence against border raiders.
The Cathedral is the College Chapel for the College as well as the cathedral church for the Diocese of Oxford.
This great abbey, marking the rebirth of Christianity in southern England, was founded shortly after AD 597 by St Augustine.
The guest house and other remains of a Benedictine priory: much of the fine 12th to 14th century monastic church survives as the parish church.
The Benedictine priory of St Mary the Virgin and St Blaise was founded in about 1117 by Robert de la Haye, Lord of Halnaker. It was a cell of the abbey at Lessay in Normandy in France and, when founded, had a community of only three monks.
This 19th-century cross of Saxon design marks what is traditionally thought to have been the site of St Augustine's landing on the shores of England in AD 597. Accompanied by 30 followers, Augustine is said to have held a mass here before moving on.
A Bronze Age stone circle, the focus of many legends, set in dramatic moorland on Stapeley Hill. It once consisted of some 30 stones, 15 of which are still visible.
Wymondham Priory - it was raised to the status of an Abbey a mere ninety years before its suppression - was founded in 1107 as a community of Benedictine monks. The founder was William D'Aubigny, sometimes referred to as d'Albini, Chief Butler to King Henry I whose widow, Alice of Louvrain, was later to marry William's son.
Substantial remains of an early Tudor friary church of Franciscan 'grey friars'.
The Grey Friars, or Franciscans, were followers of St Francis of Assisi and founded many religious houses across Europe.
They earned their name from the grey habits that were worn as a symbol of their vow of poverty.
Mount Saint Bernard Abbey is situated in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. An area of particular natural beauty in the very heart of England. It is home to an order of Cistercian Monks of the Strict Observance (Trappists).
The delightful village of Castle Acre boasts an extraordinary wealth of history and is a very rare and complete survival of a Norman planned settlement, including a castle, town, parish church and associated monastery. All this is the work of a great Norman baronial family, the Warennes, mainly during the 11th and 12th centuries.
A modest but complete and attractive 14th century chantry chapel, perhaps originally a hospital.
The modest flint and cobble chapel retains some attractive medieval features and, despite uncertainties over its origin, the rarity of medieval hospitals lends added interest.
The impressive remains of an abbey founded by Stephen, later King of England, including much of the east end and west tower of the church, the ornately decorated chapter house and the cloister buildings.
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