The Cathedral of St Chad offers educational visits for schools that are usually preparing for Confirmation. Visits are available every weekday morning; working around a busy Cathedral diary, in which you’re invited to tour parts of the Cathedral rarely seen by the public. You will be in the company of our very knowledgeable volunteer team of guides.
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
Thinktank is....
Everything you thought you knew about the world - but didn't! Find out about your world and yourself in our ten themed, hands-on galleries. Surprising! Hard to believe! And sometimes downright disgusting!! The perfect day out.
Selly Manor is a museum steeped in history, in one of Birmingham's oldest buildings. Dating back to the 1300s, in 1907, busy establishing his vision of a Bournville village, local chocolate maker and philanthropist, George Cadbury, saved it from demolition and employed architect William Alexander Harvey to oversee its relocation, to Bournville Green.
Soho House was the elegant home of industrialist and enterpreneur Matthew Boulton from 1766 to 1809. Carefully restored, this fashionable Georgian house features period room interiors with fine collections of ormolu, silver, furniture and paintings.
A unique little museum with over 5,000 objects relating to the Birmingham Steel pen trade and the history of writing. Very interactive, you can make your own pen and try your hand at calligraphy.
Restored to its former Edwardian glory, downstairs there are exhibition rooms explaining the fascinating history of the house's former occupants. An interactive train set, toy box and rooms full of antique artefacts. Outside, 7 acres of Botanic Garden to be explored and enjoyed.
When the proprietors of the Smith & Pepper jewellery manufacturing firm decided to retire in 1981 they ceased trading and locked the door, unaware they would be leaving a time capsule for future generations. Tools were left strewn on benches; grubby overalls were hung on the coat hooks; and dirty teacups were abandoned alongside jars of marmite and jam on the shelf.
Warwickshire’s history, Warwickshire’s memory
Warwickshire County Record Office collects, preserves and provides access to documents recording the history of the county, its people and places.
Housed in a Jacobean mansion, St John’s Museum showcases the social history collections. Galleries include a Victorian Kitchen and Schoolroom (used by local school children during term time for activities and learning sessions), displays on childhood, toys and games, costume and an under 5s discovery room.
The imposing shell of a grandiose Georgian mansion built in 1724-29, with an immensely columned exterior. Roofless since 1919, when its interiors were dismantled and some exported to America: but there is still much to discover within, including traces of sumptuous plasterwork. Set amid contemporary garden remains, including ha-ha ditch and parish church.
Warwickshire Museum is the name for the body which operates both the Market Hall Museum and St John's Museum in Warwick. It is part of Heritage and Culture Warwickshire.
Saltisford Canal Trust would like to give you a warm welcome to the Saltisford Arm of the Grand Union Canal, in heart of the historic market town of Warwick.
We are a small canal charity set up 30 years ago to restore the canal arm which dates back to 1799, and is originally the terminus of the Warwick and Birmingham Canal.
Visit us for a guided factory tour and to see some of the fabulous artists at work.
Led through each process of manufacture by one of Country Artist’s experienced Guides, the tour ambles its way to what many people find the most fascinating aspect of the whole tour - the painting studios.
The earthworks, albeit quite clear ones, are all that remain of this former Norman Motte and Bailey castle in Henley-in-Arden, not far from Stratford in Warwickshire.
Considered to be a "storybook in stone," Warwickshire's oldest church reflects its rich history with buttresses at odd angles, Saxon windows and remnants of a tithe barn.
Wellesbourne Airfield is a small, fully operational, thriving airfield 5 miles east of Stratfrod-upon-Avon.
Early in 1941 the Government purchased over 200 acres of Warwickshire farmland 6 miles East of Stratford Upon Avon.
Situated in the heart of the Scottish capital experience the passion of Scotland's rugby team taking on the best in the world at Murrayfield.
Walk in the footsteps of Ryan Giggs. See where Madonna stood. Where Shane Williams laced his boots, and where all the action takes place on event days.
IT'S TIME TO EXPLORE ...
We look after the archives of the city of Bristol (and surrounding areas) and make them available to everybody, free of charge.
Search our online catalogue
Come and explore this partially-reconstructed timber fort . Stand on the ramparts, explore the exhibition in the granary and imagine yourself training horses in the gyrus - a feature not found anywhere else in the Roman Empire.
Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) designed and installed the first practical and successful steam engine, used initially for pumping water out of coal mines. Over 2,000 Newcomen engines were installed world-wide during the 18th and 19th centuries, over 600 of them before 1775 when James Watt was able to improve their efficiency.
The park is a pleasant stretch of open grassland for running and frisbeeing, with a Children's Playground. The main feature is an imposing ruin of part of the castle, surrounded on three sides by a moat.
The Arts Centre is open seven days a week and events are primarily presented during the three 10-week University terms, except for films, which are shown for 52 weeks of the year. At Christmas the Theatre and Studio are used for family shows.
Garden Organic Ryton is the home of Garden Organic, the UK’s leading organic growing and lifestyle charity which is dedicated to researching and promoting organic gardening, farming and food. We currently have a membership of 32,000 people across the UK and further afield together with two other gardens in Kent and Essex.
Focuses on Kidderminster's international carpet supplying history and includes a great many textile examples, plus informative displays and exhibits.
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