Ashley Almeida, Time Truck Education Officer, gives us a round up of the Time Truck’s first month of education visits as well as the launch of the London Curriculum.
September has been a busy month for the Time Truck with workshops at several schools around Lewisham.
We’ve been out and about delivering sessions to hundreds of children. Our exciting dig boxes have proved very popular with children, giving them a chance to excavate and unearth our handling collections hidden within. Children have been amazed at the range of these, from pieces of Victorian tableware and animal bones to Roman pottery.
We’ve also been trialling a new session focussing on health and diet in which children are able to dissect (fake) poo and look at the kinds of remains left behind by past peoples. According to one teacher at St James’ C.E Hatcham Primary this greatly helped to reinforce learning within the classroom.
As well as outings to schools, we were also delighted to participate in the London Curriculum launch yesterday in Potter’s Field Park organised by A New Direction and Totally Thames. This new curriculum is designed to open up London as a classroom to schools. Schools visiting us at the launch were able to participate in a workshop on the Bloomberg Writing Tablets where they were introduced to the Roman cursive script before etching a message on to their very own writing tablet to take away as a memento of their visit.
Thanks must go to our Time Truck Support Team, particularly Stephen McLeod and Claudia Tommasino-Suarez, who between them managed to work with about 1000 children and get them thinking about the ancient objects, and poo.
If you think you or your organisation would like to support the work of the Time Truck, or if you’d like to discuss a visit to your school, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch by emailing timetruck@mola.org.uk, we’d be delighted to hear from you.
Thanks to Platinum Supporting Partner of the Time Truck, Thames Water, for funding the Cleaning up History workshop and to all of our other Time Truck sponsors: Brookfield and Oxford, Stanhope, TP Bennett, The Garfield Weston Foundation, Wates Giving and the Heritage Lottery Fund!
