Mrs Sunshine came out for Year 4’s long-awaited field trip to Northumberland this week!  

Their first stop was al fresco lunch at Housesteads, a superb example of a Roman fort right on Hadrian’s Wall. Here, they were able to explore the remains of the barrack blocks, commander’s house, granaries and infirmary which were key elements of the Roman military presence in Britain.

Miss Whitehead – head of Outdoor Learning – then led a challenging walk along the most famous stretch of Hadrian’s Wall at Steel Rigg, where the Romans’ determination to exert their authority is very evident with the Wall being constructed straight over a massive outcrop of the Whin Sill. This was the perfect opportunity for the girls to test their mettle on a tough climb, to apply the OS map reading skills recent learnt at school, and to consolidate their learning from History, Geography and English lessons about the scale of the Romans’ border controls and the setting for their recent set text, ‘Across the Roman Wall’.

 

 

A visit to the nearby Roman Army Museum completed Day One of their studies; this was a chance to learn a little Latin and to see the legions’ mightily armour and deadly weapons up close!

Day Two took a gentler pace – a visit to the archaeological site of Vindolanda, a Roman era fort and village where the nature of the anaerobic soil has led to artefacts made from leather and wood (usually lost to decay) being preserved. The range of 2,000 year old treasures to be seen at Vindolanda is mind blowing, and the girls loved walking down its ancient streets, exploring the reconstructed fort and meeting an archaeologist at work on the dig that is projected to last for another fifty years at least.

In all, two days of fabulous hands-on learning outside of the classroom – well done, Year 4!