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Monday 9th July

Chris Owen, 9 July 2007

Contributed by CAROLINE and pupils from LLANTWIT MAJOR COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL

Today good fortune was with us again with amazing sunshine. We had a visit from 14 year 7 school children and their teacher from Llantwit Major Comprehensive, the site visit took place between 9 until 1pm. The fieldtrip was not compulsory, instead the children volunteered to visit Llanmaes, I asked Kirsty whether her reasons for visiting Llanmaes was to skip lessons but instead Kirsty seemed genuinely interested in visiting the site and is very interested in history. Kirsty has visited the site before and so it is very encouraging that she wished to visit again, perhaps we have a budding archaeologis? Another student- Yegor seemed to be enjoying his first visit to the site.

The students were taught how to use a dumpy level, and using angles and height measurements helped us position canes to plot out the outline of the enclosure surrounding the site. This helps us and the school children to visually see its shape and grand scale. Again these students were from geography class and following their visit are expected to write up a small report about their visit, about what they enjoyed and learnt. Photographs and video footage accompany the students visit today. The children were expected to use the dumpy level to lay out correct angles and to determine the height of the staff and using tape measures.

One student Becky has had previous experience with archaeology having once been a member of a Young Archaeologists Club in Shetland, she was a member of the club for 2 years and made many new friends. Found pottery and recreated the pot where possible. Becky learnt about prehistory, and the work of an archaeologist. Two years a member. Made new friends at the club. Becky has very much enjoyed learning about archaeology at Llanmaes and at the club in Shetland which was held during school time. When at the club Becky considered becoming an archaeologist, but its been two years now since she left the archaeology club (because she moved house) and Becky has changed her career choice to being hopefully a beautician with her own business.

3 groups of year seven geography students have now visited us at Llanmaes, 2 in one day previously and today just one group, this is however the last. Next week follow up activities are planned at their school. These activities include art, poetry, music and creative writing. An afternoon of creative writing is planned following their visit to the site. The children are expected to write about what life may have been like for the inhabitants during the prehistoric and roman era. The Welsh poet of the year is coming in to help the children create poetry and a musician (a drummer) is visiting to carry out music workshops. These visits to the site are intended as a way of archaeology forging links with the community and giving the children an insight as to what it is like to be an archaeology student. The site visit has been very much cross curricular in nature, particularly for history and geography. This was intended mainly as a geography fieldtrip as the children are learning to appreciate why the inhabitants would have chosen to occupy this site. They will also look at aerial photographs to understand how archaeologists often find sites through cropmarks as well as see the settlement in its wider landscape setting in terms of nearby features such as brroks and drainage of the soil, relief, temperature and climate.

Chris Owen

Digital Development Manager

Comments (1)

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Nigel NMW
12 July 2007, 15:45
I hope all the year seven's from Llantwit Major school enjoyed their morning as much as I did working with them! I was very impressed with how hard they worked and how quickly they learnt how to set up and use a dumpy level.
The final result with flags marking out the ditch into the distance was brilliant.
Well done Geography class!