On 27 February Wessex Archaeology’s Senior Community & Education Officer Rachel Brown travelled to Plympton, Devon to run some sessions in a local school based upon the archaeological findings from the nearby Sherford site, funded by the Sherford Consortium. We have previously run a number of outreach events to share the discoveries at the site with the local community on behalf of the developers and the school visit was a part of this on-going work.
Rachel worked with Year 6 and Year 3 students at Goosewell Academy. The Year 6 students investigated artefacts that had been found at Sherford, to discover what can be learnt from the finds about the people who had inhabited the land over the last c. 8000 years. They also looked into the Bronze Age round barrows discovered on site, which deepened their understanding of prehistoric activity at Sherford. The lesson allowed the students to learn about their local environment, how landscapes change over time, and also supported the National Curriculum work they will be doing in the summer term based around prehistory. The Year 3 students also learnt about finds from the site and discovered how the archaeologists at Sherford conducted the excavation, this linked to earlier work the Years 3 students had been doing on archaeology.
The visit provided an excellent opportunity for students to engage with their local history and environment.