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| Each year the Trust works with various schools within its area. These range from one off sessions to workshop programmes involving several sessions. We will often invite local schools to take part in projects – participation usually involves a classroom ‘pre-visit', where sites and projects are contextualised within the wider historic landscape and pupils learn about what being an archaeologist actually involves. These introductory sessions are followed by site visits where pupils are given the opportunity to become archaeologists for the day, assisting us with our excavation or recording work. Sessions and activities are designed to supplement those areas of the national curriculum a class or year is currently working on. If your school is interested in working with GAT, or to enquire about work experience opportunities for pupils with us, contact outreach@heneb.co.uk
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Examples of Past Sessions (2019) |
Parc Cybi Project
As part of our Welsh Government funded Parc Cybi project, 120 Ysgol Cybi pupils helped us prepare for two public exhibitions. Gwynedd Archaeological Trust carried out archaeological excavations before work began on Parc Cybi, Holyhead – a Welsh Government development site. The exhibitions displayed some of the objects found. GAT organised a program of over twenty workshops at the school, taking place between September and December 2019. Pupils learnt about the excavations at Parc Cybi and helped create various exhibits. Sessions included: model roundhouse making, Neolithic and Bronze Age pot making, writing and recording a song about roundhouses, creating a photographic exhibit of the nearby Ty Mawr hut circles, making spindle whorls using ancient craft techniques and bead making. Click here to listen to the piece of music Year 3 created for the exhibition. For more information on our Parc Cybi project click here.
Pen y Bryn Quarry Barracks, Dyffryn Nantlle
Primary schools from the Dyffryn Nantlle area were invited to take part in our Cadw funded Pen y Bryn Quarry Barracks project (part of a nominated World Heritage Site). The project helped provide a better understanding of the phasing of the barracks and associated buildings, as well as shedding light on how quarrymen and their families might have lived there. Three primary schools took part. During classroom sessions we discussed the meaning of archaeology and learnt about how archaeologists work. Children learnt about the barracks and their context in the wider historic landscape. We then explained what tasks pupils would be undertaking during their site visits. During site visits pupils learnt about features and buildings we passed as we walked through the wider quarrying landscape on our way to the barracks. This included looking at old photographs and considering how the landscape and built environment has changed over time. At the barracks pupils practiced building recording skills, recorded and photographed historic graffiti and artefacts found on site, and considered what it may have been like to live there.
Saving Treasures, Telling Stories
GAT successfully applied for funding from Saving Treasures, Telling Stories - a Heritage Lottery funded project coordinated by National Museum Wales, The Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Wales. In partnership with Storiel Museum and Gallery, GAT worked with 30 pupils at Ysgol Bro Lleu, Penygroes. Pupils examined a medieval silver coin hoard found locally, learning why the coins might have ended up where they were eventually found, where they originally came from and how they were made. Pupils then took part in a craft workshop, making their own coin dies and coins out of polymer modelling clay. The pupil's coins formed part of Storiel's Migrating Metals exhibition later that year. GAT and Storiel also conducted workshops in the local community as part of the project. For more information on how we could work with your school, contact outreach@heneb.co.uk For information on the Bangor (Gwynedd) branch of the Young Archaeologist's' Club, which Gwynedd Archaeological Trust runs, click here.
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