St Swithun’s Year 7 pupils welcome BBC presenter Julian Richards to their cultures and civilisations week

20 Jun 2013

The week before half term saw St Swithun’s Year 7s immersed in a variety of activities and lessons all based around different cultures and ancient civilisations.

The girls enjoyed a talk and workshops with archaeologist and BBC Meet the Ancestors presenter Julian Richards. Workshops included trying to deduce the functionality of artefacts from which only a section was available. These detective skills also came to the fore in mathematics lessons as the girls were presented with five different maths related artefacts from which they had to work out who used them and for what purpose.

Other activities included working with local Winchester artist Eileen White to create some beautiful cut paper designs based on Indian imagery, African drumming with an expert Noah Messomo, from the Cameroon, Indian dancing lessons with Kerala born Southampton based dancer Kalamandalam Vijayakumar, learning how to make sushi and dress in Japanese traditional kimono costumes and tasting the Caribbean by making fruit smoothies and banana muffins in food tech.

Chemistry lessons took on a Celtic theme. Girls traced their own zodiac sign from the Celtic tree calendar before extracting copper from malachite and creating their own copper wire jewellery based on ancient designs.

Zulu is a language which isn’t on offer at many establishments but the Year 7s enjoyed getting to grips with learning some of the language basics with resident expert Vaughn Williams.

In the middle of the week the girls found time for a day out at the Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition at the British Museum in London.

Photo: Year7 girls working with Julian Richards