Year 7 students embarked on a journey back in time to the Tower of London, Wednesday 22nd May to engage in educational and immersive workshops as well as being able to discover the Tower grounds.
Having just concluded their studies on the English Reformation, the trip was perfectly timed to complement the curriculum. Students were able to see for themselves the cells used to hold religious prisoners, and the torture devices used to uncover details of religious plots against the Crown. The young historians were also able to reflect at the site believed to be where Anne Boleyn was beheaded, along with Lady Jane Grey and other high-status persons convicted of treason. The students were surprised that William Penn, founding Quaker, had been held at the Tower, and that the Kray twins had spent a few days at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in the Tower!
The workshop students took part in was a fabulous addition to their learning and aligned with our LP approach to History. Being led through the stories of well-known casualties of the Tower, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Moore, but invited to reflect on why these stories have been remembered above all the other stories of those passing through the Tower. Students were then taken through some less well-known stories and were able to produce fantastic explanations for why they have not been chronicled in our histories and the importance of trying to correct this.
Rosa (Year 7) reflected on what she enjoyed about the trip: “I thought that the trip was really fun and I liked learning about all of these people whose stories don’t get told that much, because they were women or their stories were seen as less important. I was really interested to learn about the people that were imprisoned and executed in the tower and why, and how some of the reasons that people were locked up and killed are seen as rather stupid today. I also loved getting to see the actual tower and go in it and explore it and I loved finding out how people lived all of that time ago”.
A cultural enriching trip for our Year 7s indeed!
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