Hello, this is Portchester Castle. It’s a twelfth century castle inside a roman fort.
Our Discovery Visit is linked with the Big History; we call it Dominant Castle to Hidden Fort.
We aim to look at how weapons and artillery changed, and how castles and forts changed
throughout 2000 years of history.
We use castles a lot in our curriculum, being a local school. So it forms part from year
R right the way up to year 6. We have the children building castles, we have them talking
about castles, we have them learning about the different elements of castles. We link
it to science and D+T where we think about how castles were built, and how they’ve
developed through the years.
We dress in costume so that we give them the feeling of being the characters, it’s a
bit like being part of a play. They have puzzles to solve and they can become part of the history.
My favourite part today was being on the Roman side, doing the turtle formation in our charge.
Because it’s really educational and it’s really fun to have a go at holding shields
above your head.
I really like it here, its way more fun and I actually enjoy learning here.
I’d highly recommend it, it just brings the learning to life for the children and
they have that hands-on experience and they’re the experiences that the children will remember
the most.