Local schoolchildren swapped the classroom for dig site
A group of Preston youngsters swapped their pens for trowels for a school day with a difference at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).
Twenty-one children from five Fulwood primary schools spent the day digging and discovering ancient artefacts and making their own replica Anglo Saxon pots.
The Year 5 and 6 pupils honed their digging skills in a sand pit before heading to UCLan’s Brook Street excavation site to hunt for objects related to Preston’s housing in the 1800s.
The youngsters, from Sherwood Primary School, Harris Primary School, Fulwood and Cadley Primary School, St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School and Queen’s Drive Primary School, also worked with plastic skeletons to learn about bones and spent time in a laboratory sorting previously found artefacts into different types of pottery.
Ten-year-old Remae, a Year 6 pupil from Fulwood and Cadley Primary School, was one of those enjoying her time digging in the mud. She said: “I’ve really enjoyed learning and finding out new things because this is what I want to do for a job when I’m older. It’s been a lot of fun too.”
"It was fantastic to share our passion for archaeology with the children, and it was wonderful to see how enthusiastic they were at finding artefacts and making discoveries at the site"
— Dr Jennifer Jones, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology
Year 5 pupil Kray, aged nine from St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School, said: “I enjoyed having a go at modelling a pot out of plasticine and learning about how they were made. I also liked looking at the plastic human skeleton.”
Dr Jennifer Jones, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, led the day long outreach session. She commented: “It was fantastic to share our passion for archaeology with the children, and it was wonderful to see how enthusiastic they were at finding artefacts and making discoveries at the site.
“We were particularly excited about the hair curler that was found, as although we have read about them in books, we hadn't found one on any of our sites before.
“This outreach event provided the children with an experience they would never access in their everyday lives, so I hope the day inspired them to want to learn more about the past because they could see how important archaeology is for understanding more about the people that came before us. I also hope it inspired some of them to want to be archaeologists when they grow up.”
