ARCHAEOLOGY AND EARLY YEARS
History of the Early Years Project Dave Weldrake The West Yorkshire Archaeology and Early Years project was conceived as a joint venture between the West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service (WYAAS) and Trinity and All Saints College (TASC) in Leeds. Its aim was To develop effective teaching material for the successful introduction of archaeology into early years teaching. I have been visiting TASC for a number of yours to talk to ITT students about the way in which archaeology can be used to stimulate children's learning in primary education. Much of this work focused on KS2 and Beverley Forrest, Senior Lecturer in Education, suggested that we might try to develop some resources for Foundation Stage and KS1, We therefore held a meeting with a number of students who were intending to specialize in early years education. We discussed several ideas and ways in which they could then be developed in the classroom. With support from Beverley and myself the students developed these ideas and incorporated them into their schemes of work for their teaching practice. Beverly and I monitored the lessons and had further discussions with the students afterwards. These focused on how they felt the archaeology sessions had gone and what they thought was the most/least useful of the elements which they had tried out. The material generated by this process is now being presented as Archaeology and Early Years and represent a synthesis of ideas generated during the life of the project. Acknowledgments Click here to view the resources generated by the project. For more about WYAAS Education Services click here. |