This term I’ve been getting stuck into our school experiences that travel outside of Hull, in particular our day trips to York and London, and getting lots of hands-on experience from the other LELs - Alan, Shaun and Phil.
YORK YOUR WAY
Every experience, whilst planned in the same way, is unique to each individual school and even each individual day: the walking tours can be different every time we do it depending on the weather, the train schedules and needs of the school as well which museum (Jorvik or York Castle Museum) has been booked so it has been great for me to see lots of variations of our ‘York your way,’ trip before I attempted to lead my own. In addition to this, whilst I’ve been to York many times outside of work, I didn’t really know much about its history with Vikings, chocolate (KitKats) and confectionary (Fruit Pastels) and the links that it had to Hull such as William Etty. I love KitKats so I’m feeling guilty that I never knew that they were invented in York! Even as LELs we are constantly learning!
What is exciting about York is that there is always something to see, whether it’s York Minster, The Shambles or walking the wall. As I child, I never got the opportunity to go on a school trip and travel to cities like York and London on a train for the first time so I can imagine that for our KS2 children, these experiences are one of a kind but also exciting and daunting all at the same time. Every single part of the day is filled with new things to see and learn, small challenges for each child to overcome like travelling on a train or walking along the wall or making links to things in their daily life like eating KitKats in their packed lunch but now knowing where and who invented them!
Whilst shadowing the other LELs, I’ve discovered that both museums that we offer on our trips have so much to offer with exciting things to see. At Jorvik Viking Museum on Coppergate, children get to stand on the site of a remarkable archaeological discovery that transformed our understanding of Viking life and look at uncovered the houses, workshops, and backyards of the Viking-age city of Jorvik. The staff at the Jorvik Centre guide the children through the space in character as Viking people and talk about the Viking artefacts found on the archeological digs between 1976 and 1871, such as Viking ice skates, bones and Viking games. Without a doubt, the most exciting artefact that the children always love is the Viking poo - believed to be the largest intact piece of fossilised human faeces ever found! I can imagine the conversations the children are having with their adults at home about that!
At York Castle Museum, there are hundreds of years of history for the children to see and experience, from the world renowned Victorian street Kirkgate, to meeting the infamous prisoners in the spooky cells and all the way to the swinging sixties. My favourite part of the museum, and a popular favourite with the children that I took from Thorpepark Academy, was the Victorian street, the Victorian classroom and prison cells as they had the biggest reaction on the children. They children started to make links between their own classrooms and Victorian classrooms and how lucky they are with what their schools provide for them compare to Victorian children.
Thank you Year Four Miss Taylor’s class at Thorpepark Academy for being my first class that I took to York on my own! You were amazing!
'I got dressed up today and went into the old classroom, which was fun but a bit scary. I'm glad our classrooms aren't like that!'
Year 4 Child, Thorpepark Academy
LONDON DAY TRIPS
Again, with our London trips at HEY CU, they are never the same and always filled with days of seeing new sights and unexpected surprises! Carefully planned and individually tailored to our ACE schools, there is so much to see and experience, packed into one whole day. Natural History Museum, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Science Museum, Parliament, the list is endless and always evolving.
On the day I went with Phil and Clifton Primary School, there were two amazing moments for me on that experience. Firstly, seeing the children’s shocked faces when we first entered the London Underground and experiencing getting on and off the busy tube lines and the crowds of people in London. And secondly, getting to see the Changing of the Guards as it wasn’t on our planned agenda for the day but coincidently as we were passing through, we managed to get front row and witness the horse guards dismounting from their duties. What a golden nugget experience!
After achieving 20,000 steps on each day trip, I’m putting my feet up for a while now and preparing for other exciting projects that are happening at HEY CU ready for our 30-year anniversary this year. But a huge shout out to Shaun, Alan and Phil for giving me the confidence to lead York trips and showing me how amazing the London experiences are too!
Katie, Learning Experience Lead