This Educational session is designed for secondary school students, and can be adjusted to suit all years from 7 - 13.
It has a maximum capacity of 32 students and is £90 per session.
It is an hour-long skills based workshop that examines history of Verulamium and the structure of Roman society. It asks the students how we know about the past, and challenges them to move beyond the notion of history or archaeology having “correct answers”.
Students are able to handle genuine Roman artefacts, and are tasked with assigning them to one of 4 social groups in the Roman world. They also work out what the objects are used for, made of, how they were made and how far they have travelled to get to Verulamium.
The session is high-energy and engaging. It is designed to make the students think, debate and develop their evaluation skills.
Skills/Learning Objectives:
- Develop students’ source enquiry skills through artefact investigation
- Students will gain an understanding of Roman daily life at Verulamium
- Students will appreciate the way social status impacted daily life
- Students will begin to appreciate the inherent bias in the archaeological record and its impact on historical study
The session meets several of the learning criteria from both the OCR and Eduqas GCSE Latin syllabus.
From Eduqas, our session meets the following syllabus points:
- Demonstrate knowledge of an aspect of Roman civilization
- Analyse and respond to ancient source material
- Evaluate evidence from throughout the topic to respond to an extended evaluation question.
For OCR, our session meets these syllabus points:
- Use a range of ancient sources including literary, inscriptional and archaeological
- Evaluate usefulness of primary sources as evidence through comprehension and comparison, identifying gaps in evidence, distortion for literary effect, or bias
- Select analyse and evaluate evidence to draw an informed conclusion and make a reasoned evidence-based response to the material studied
Our Educational sessions run from Monday - Friday and are frequently paired with a self-guided tour of Verulamium Museum.
Bookings are now open for the academic year 2024-25.
You can use our free online resources about the Romans to prepare your classes for the trip or as follow up activities to embed their learning.
Resources:
Our learning programmes have been awarded the Sandford Award for the quality of heritage learning on offer. In order to receive this award, our learning programmes must meet the following criteria:
- The learning programmes are delivered in a way that engages, informs and inspires visitors
- The learning provision at our sites contributes to an understanding of the local and national heritage
- Our learning programmes have been developed through consultation with customers and learning providers and advisers
- There is attention to good management and administrations during all aspects of the visit
- Learning resources and services are provided which enhance the quality of the learners' visit
- The statutory requirements are met and essential additional policies and strategies are in place.