Phew! We’ve had a pretty busy half-term, meeting lots of pupils and running a variety of workshops.

We kicked off June with Second World War workshops for year 3 pupils at Catton Grove Primary School. Pupils enjoyed learning about the evacuees from and to Norfolk, and how St Augustine’s School was bombed. They particularly enjoyed looking at some of the objects that staff took with them, with comments ranging from  ‘I liked the light because it was cool learning about the blackout‘ to ‘I liked when we held the bomb because I have never held one before!‘, one pupil even went as far to say ‘I had lots of fun doing everything!‘

The following week we were out at Kinsale Junior School to introduce their year 6 pupils to the work of an archivist. Pupils were about to see the types of documents we hold, what happened to the documents during and after the fire in Norwich Central Library in 1994. The most popular part of the workshop was discovering some of the issues we face when conserving documents that may have been stored in sheds, lofts and outhouses.

Pupils picked up on the issues with spiders and other insects, what happens when you try and repair documents with tape, and what happens to an elastic band once it has lost it’s elasticity. Pupils stated ‘I thought everything was awesome, especially the horrors box‘. One pupil summed up the whole workshop, saying, ‘I loved the workshop today because we learnt but also had so much fun. I wished we could do it again!‘.

We ran our first refugee workshop at Avenue Junior School, working with their year 6 groups. Pupils spent time playing the indenture game to discover some of the refugees who settled in Norfolk and Norwich, and their contribution to British society. Next they worked on a timeline in order to pin point the reasons many of these refugees fled their home countries. Finally, they learnt about Jewish Refugee Lewis Ekker and thought about the items that refugees might take with them when they flee. The pupils learnt a lot, and since the workshop staff have worked on changing to the timeline activity in order to run the session to other schools.

Packing a Refugee Suitcase

We had year 3-5 pupils from Bacton Primary School in to The Archive Centre in order to learn about their local area. Pupils had a local history workshop, and looked at some original documents, concentrating on Bromholme Priory and the Paston family. This emphasised work that they had started in the classroom.

Discovering Real Parchment

Looking at an Early Bacton School Log Book

Finally, just before the end of term, staff visited Bressingham Primary School to run 2 workshops. One for their year 2 pupils, and one for their year 6s. Looking at their local history. The pupils all worked really hard and found out a lot about their local area. You can find out more on their blog post for Year 2 Hedgehogs and Year 6 Kestrels.

Finding out about Bressingham

We hope you all have a great summer holiday and look forward to seeing you in the new academic year.