Salisbury Cathedral School News
18/05/2011
Year 6 visit Fishbourne Roman Palace
On Friday, year 6 set off to Fishbourne Roman Palace where we planned to look at different aspects of domestic life in Britain.
On arrival, we tackled the biscuits and, suitably fortified, set off to explore. To begin with, we watched a short video, narrated by Tony Robinson, which just gave us an overview of the site and its discovery in the 1960s. From there, we attended an artefacts workshop. In groups of five, children were given genuine (rather than reproduction) artefacts to handle. They were asked to consider what they were and how they were used. Some things were more obvious than others, but pupils came up with some very inspired guesses! We were then put out of our misery as we were shown what they really were and how they'd have been used.
Next came the chance for a bit of dressing up. Araminta drew the short straw and became a slave, but Flavia fared a little better a wealthy girl and we discovered what sort of jobs would have been done in a kitchen and how it was organised.
Once we had consumed our lunch - not stuffed dormice - we had a look around the museum, the palace and its gardens. The mosaics were clearly the big attraction, as was the opportunity to try on a helmet as a kindly guide spotted our group and let everyone have a go.
After a quick visit to the shop, we were ready to return home full of the day's adventures. EW
Photographs by Andrew Stewart
