“It was fun”, “It was really fun”, “I really enjoyed it”, “When you’re learning things, but you do it in a fun way you learn more”. These are just a few of the comments from Ponteland High School’s Year 8 students, who took part in an Education Outreach Project with Newcastle University Library, teaming up with The National Civil War Centre (located in Newark) and Newark High School. 

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National Curriculum Subject Content:

Year 8 History: gain historical perspective by placing knowledge into different contexts; understand connections between local, regional and national history and between cultural, economic, military, political and social history.

Project Summary:

This project involved two schools:  Ponteland High School and Newark Academy.  Organised by Robinson Library Special Collections, the two sets of Year 8 students worked with Newark National Civil War Centre, Cap-a-Pie Theatre company, Time Bandits and Lydia Wysocki​ (ECLS).  Ponteland students visited Robinson Library for a series of workshops and lectures on the Civil War, focusing on daily and military life, then spent a week off timetable preparing a play with Time Bandits and Cap-a-Pie Theatre Company based on the Siege of Newcastle.  Students then travelled to Newark to visit the Civil War Centre where they had a tour of the museum and performed their play in front of the Newark students in the adjoining theatre. 

Skills Development:

• Developing historical knowledge
• Using authentic resources
• Working independently and in a group
• Working towards a goal by listening to instructions and following direction
• Creating a final product (drama production)
• Communicating ideas to an external audience (during the final presentation to the partner school)

Read the Education Outreach team's reflections on how the project went:

https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/liboutreach/2020/04/29/a-tale-of-two-sieges-how-the-civil-war-affected-newcastle-and-newark/