Case Studies

Since 1998 CSA has contributed to the S1 and S2 history curriculum of both the Royal Blind School, and Kaimes School. By providing hands-on activities, the pupils are able to digest and understand more information than would normally be possible.

Royal Blind School, Edinburgh

Our work at the Blind School has primarily focussed on artefact handling but has also included aspects of 'stone age' technology. The school links the activities to 5-14 history curriculum for S1 pupils. The object handling sessions have been particularly successful. They have helped the children to imagine life in the past, and have also been vital in stimulating question and answer sessions. The children are encouraged to explore the artefacts - describing what they can feel

For the ancient technology activities, the children are encouraged to feel their way through each process; for example, during the grinding they feel the saddle quern and the rubbing stone, feel the hard grain in their hands, feel the technique of rubbing the grain against stone, and feel the powdery flour produced as a result, thus they know they have been successful in the activity

The school has found the sessions to be invaluable in enhancing the students' knowledge and understanding of the past, while the pupils themselves have said that description and oral sessions alone make it hard for them to understand what life was like in the past whereas being able to handle objects brings it alive for them.

Kaimes School, Edinburgh

Our work with the S1/2 pupils at Kaimes has involved both the Work of an Archaeologist workshop which looks at the recover and analysis of primary evidence, and the Ancient Technology workshops. Kaimes School educates young people on the Autistic Spectrum as well as children with Dyslexia. Many young people suffering from these disorders find initiating social contact extremely difficult because they do not understand social signals, while many struggle in using their imagination without experiencing direct stimuli. The hands-on nature of the CSA workshop helps in the development of skills the pupils have difficulty with, and provides an opportunity to interact with each other.

During the Work of an Archaeologist workshop, the activities generally hold the attention of the pupils for almost two hours which, given the special needs of the students at Kaimes, is quite an achievement. The textile activities that form part of the Ancient Technology workshop had been successful in encouraging the pupils to work together and communicate with each other to create an end result.

The school considers the CSA workshops to be an integral part of their course offering an exciting learning opportunity for its pupils. By making subjects more attractive to the pupils, it helps them to transfer learned information between subjects. The teachers at the school feel that, through both workshops, the students are given a stimulation for history in its widest sense that they could not otherwise experience.