Phill Brant-Simmons and Michaela Lennox reflect on the first session of Corinium Museum's Young Archaeologists' Club
After several months of work to get it off the ground, Corinium Museum staff Michaela Lennox and Phill Brant-Simmons started a Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) at the museum. YACs are held all over the country and provide a unique opportunity for 8 to 16-year-olds to learn about archaeology, and have plenty of fun at the same time. Despite its rich archaeology, Gloucestershire didn’t have any until a few months ago when Gloucester launched one, and now the museum has followed suit. The 17th of January marked our taster session for the club.
Here is an account from each of them.
Phill
We were both very excited about starting this club, and we’ve come up with loads of ideas for sessions throughout the year, which we can’t wait to share with the club. As it was our first meeting, we went in without a particular theme, and instead did three quite different things just to give them an idea of the sort of thing that the club would be about. We started off with a brief talk discussing what archaeology is and what it involves, then we had an archaeological and history inspired quiz, which the kids did really well at!
For the second activity, we gave them some real pottery from a dig in 2016, and tasked them with recording, identifying, and drawing the pottery. All things that real archaeologists have to do in their jobs. I was impressed at how keenly the kids took to the task, some of them even found some sherds that went together and were from the same pot.
Lastly, we gave them two burials with grave goods from Butler’s Field in Lechlade and similarly tasked them with working together to record the finds. They worked together well and managed to piece together the stories of the two people, at least the start of it anyway.
It was a really fun first session, and we are already thinking of ideas for the next one, with a theme of fossils.
Michaela
We were astounded with the number of children interested in joining an archaeology club. It showed how much the area needed one, which isn’t surprising with the incredibly rich history Gloucestershire has.
After establishing that we wanted to create a place for children and young people to explore archaeology, we embarked on planning. Phill had mountains of ideas which was ideal, as my background lies with natural history! We have so many ways to explore the past, I feel we are in an incredibly privileged position to be able to share what we know and new discoveries with the next generation.
Our first session on Saturday was the ultimate test. We put together three activities to give the attendees a range of skills and areas of interest. They were able show off their knowledge, to use their reasoning and judgement to ID pottery and creating ideas about the lives of two people from burials. I was impressed with how engaged they were, especially in a new environment with new people. They wanted to share their thoughts, revel in new facts and were surprisingly competitive. I think that is the real charm of this club; we can help children and young people learn and grow in a place that isn’t the classroom.
From this trial session, we learnt a few things ourselves. Regular breaks were a must and, of course, the concept of ‘fairness’ when giving out points in quizzes! But overall, it was a huge success. We had fun, everyone enjoyed it and we succeeded in creating a welcoming space for children and young people to engage with their local history.
We’re already excited to get started on the next sessions and what unique experiences we can create. And after asking at the session, a resounding ‘fossils’ theme was requested for our next meet up in February and although not strictly archaeological, I can’t say I’m not a little bit pleased!
The next session will be held on February 21st. For more details, contact corinium@freedom.leisure.co.uk. You can also call us on 01285 655611.
