A museum with over 50 micro cars from the 50s and 60s, plus scooters on display, a row of recreated shops to explore, and loads of memorabilia to look at.
Some of these displays are pretty entertaining, and others are through provoking.
History
History
History tells stories about people, places and things to help explain to young people of any age why the world is as it is as they grow up and begin to question it.
Schools will choose different periods and settings and topics to cove during different Key Stages, but all of them are pretty well guaranteed to be rooted in actual places that can be visited, explored and enjoyed.
It has been a curious fact that for many years primary classes have studied the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods, while secondary school syllabuses have been more engaged in post-medieval periods. For a while secondary courses involved a great deal of ‘topic work’. While this discipline still exists, the recent examination syllabuses have returned to an emphasis on historical periods and links.
But all periods and topics provide fantastic opportunities for school visits. We are so lucky that so many general and specialist museums and visitor centres exist in the UK. The problem is not a shortage of possibilities but how one sifts through the available opportunities to make choices.
The Historical Association website carries information about course, conferences, study tours, and the Association has published ‘The Historian’ magazine for many years. Handsam is also happy to help, please contact us on 03332 070737 or email info@schooltripsadvisor.org.uk.
Most venues will have teaching materials and activities geared to students’ different ages and aptitudes whether at primary or secondary level. All of them will set out to develop students’ ability to understand, analyse and evaluate key features and characteristics of historical periods and events studied.
Some venues will be easy to identify because they fit neatly with the period and topic being studied but others may offer new possibilities, not least to the teachers themselves. Teachers need and deserve their own stimulation.
Over the next four years there will be an upsurge in visits to the First World War battlefields. Because of this there will be an increase in companies offering visits and requirement for battlefield guides, especially in northern France and Belgium. There are bound to be discrepancies in guides’ knowledge and experience. Close research into the credentials of the company you are contracting with, and the company’s guarantees about guides, will ensure that your group will not be disappointed.
Main organisations:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Inclusion: NASEN
Thought of visiting?
Roman Vindolanda and Roman Army Museum at Hadrian’s Wall
Viriconium, Wroxeter, Shropshire
The Jorvik Viking Centre, York
Offa’s Dyke Trail and Chirk Castle
The National Trust for Scotland
Clan Donald Visitor Centre, Isle of Skye
Bosworth Battlefield Visitor Centre
Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
Exeter Cathedral Education Centre
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth
East Anglia Railway Museum, Colchester
The National Tramway Museum, Matlock
Venues for this Curriculum
Learning at our outdoor education centre makes Mill on the Brue a perfect environment to inspire people. With over 40 activities to choose on our 25 acre estate, we can tailor-make your programme to suit the needs and requirements of your group.
A highly unusual, but enjoyable way to explore the Cotswolds, by camel! A great trek with friendly guides, who lead the camels at all times. Available throughout the year, but weather dependent.
Joseph's Amazing Camels offers a 3 hour camel experience, which includes a trek through beautiful Warwickshire countryside for groups of up to 16 people.
A deserted medieval village, one of the best-preserved examples in England, clearly visible as a complex of grassy humps and bumps. According to legend demolished as a den of thieves, but the real reason for its abandonment remains uncertain.
Among the 3,000 or so deserted villages in England, Gainsthorpe is one of the most clearly visible and best preserved.
A late Neolithic or early Bronze Age circle of 18 fallen stones, on a hilltop overlooking Abbotsbury and the sea. The Kingston Russell circle is believed to date back to the later Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, some 4,000 years ago.
A former gravel pit turned nature reserve and a good venue for families to explore
A 144 acre country park sandwiched between the villages of Harrold and Odell 10mls NW of Bedford. It features 2 picturesque lakes and a stretch of the River Great Ouse with wheelchair and pushchair friendly paths round the main lake and outdoor play areas.
here are small play areas at each end and opportunities to view plants and animals as you stroll round.
Yorkshire's Finest House & Gardens
Castle Howard is Yorkshire's finest stately home and garden near York. Grand interiors, gardens and an adventure playground make for a great family day out.
Croxteth Hall is situated in a beautiful Country Park setting and is one of Liverpool's most important heritage sites.
The Country Park is also home to a real working Home Farm, a Victorian Walled Garden and a 500 acre nature reserve - all open to the public.
Set in the attractive Moors-edge market town of Pickering; discover how this splendid 13th century castle was used throughout the centuries.
This tourist attraction in the heart of the North York Moors National Park has been a royal hunting lodge, holiday home and a stud farm by a succession of medieval kings.
A perfect educational visit in Yorkshire.
The Robey Trust , based at the New Perseverance Ironworks, is a charity dedicated to continuing the traditions of the Robey Engineering Company of Lincoln. This involves not only the maintenance in working order of many Robey engines, the vast majority of them steam engines, but also continuing and transmitting to coming generations the expertise required to preserve and run these machines.
Explore the museum’s large, outstanding collections and trace the fascinating history of Mid Devon. The displays include the ‘Tivvy Bumper’ GWR steam engine, local industries (particularly lace making), farm waggons and the history of agriculture, and the every day home life of Mid Devon folk.
Rockbourne is near Fordingbridge in a picturesque and peaceful part of Hampshire close to the New Forest. The Roman villa once stood in the centre of a large farming estate, and is the largest known villa in the area. Its history spans the period from the Iron Age to the 5th century AD. The villa includes bath houses, living quarters, farm buildings and workshops.
Hezlett House may be small but it is bursting with history, stories and tales. Dressed for the late Victorian period typical for this Irish farmstead visitors can immerse themselves in that time and get hands on with many of the items experiencing life on the farm. The beautiful grounds have been lovingly restored including a small working fruit orchard and kitchen garden.
The South Devon Railway is one of Devon’s and the West Country’s best loved tourist attractions and is the longest established steam railway in the south west.
A working estate still guided by the seasons, with an impressive mansion and Home Farm
The mansion, at the heart of this estate, is evidence of Elsie Bambridge's success in creating a home. Elsie was the daughter of acclaimed author Rudyard Kipling.
A spectacular 14th century monastic stone barn, 51 metres (168 feet) long, with an amazing timber cruck roof.
This is one of the country’s finest examples of medieval monastic barns – rightly called ‘the cathedrals of the land’.
Built in the early years of the 14th century, it originally formed part of a range of farm buildings grouped around an open rectangular yard.
Cheshire Wildlife Trust is the leading environmental charity in Cheshire offering high quality environmental education field trips and sessions to schools or community groups.
Norfolk’s wonderful museum of rural life and the Workhouse
This fifty-acre site with its magnificent Georgian workhouse invites you to explore two centuries of life on the land. There are recreations of shops and homes, extensive displays on farming and village life and the popular Collections Gallery - a real treasure trove.
Young visitors have the opportunity to get close to a wide range of farm animals from the tiniest chickens to the statuesque Shire horses, with hands-on activities and play zones.
Plus indoor Egg Splat cannons and ride on tractors as well as two adventure play areas for different age groups and the tractor trailer ride.
A working 2.2 acre city farm in the heart of London with open animal yard, bee room, cafe, working blacksmith's forge and classrooms.
We hold special activities in school holidays such as baking and crafts as well as encouraging families to help out on the farm with some hands-on work experience!
School Visits to the Farm
St Mary's Church, known also as St Mary's Pro-Cathedral or simply the Pro-Cathedral, is a pro-cathedral in the Irish city of Dublin.
The ruins of the medieval castle and Tudor manor house of the Corbets are dominated by the theatrical shell of an ambitious Elizabethan mansion wing in Italianate style, which was devastated during the Civil War. Fine Corbet monuments fill the adjacent church.
Information panels illustrate the 500-year history of the castle.
Set beside the church of the picturesque ironstone village of Lyddington, Lyddington Bede House originated as the medieval wing of a palace belonging to the Bishops of Lincoln.
The Metropolitan Cathedral Church of St David, also known as St David's Cathedral Cardiff is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city centre of Cardiff, Wales and is the centre of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cardiff.
One of the most complete surviving Saxon churches in England, this chapel was built in 1056 by Earl Odda, and rediscovered in 1865 subsumed into a farmhouse. Nearby is the equally famous Saxon parish church.
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