Festival for Schools Testimonials - Chalke History Festival

RATHBONES FESTIVAL FOR SCHOOLS

TESTIMONIALS

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From: Graveney School, London

“I’m the Head of History and Politics at Graveney School in South London. I wanted to let you know how very grateful we are for your enthusiasm to support schools and students like ours. Graveney is a very high achieving state school. We set very aspirational goals for our students. It is a community school that serves a wide variety of students and my department works hard to ensure they can access as many opportunities for extra-curricular learning as possible but there is no way that we would have been able to attend the festival without your assistance. I cannot tell you how pleasing it was to see our students engage with the lectures and activities on offer at the festival. For many students this would have been a truly new experience and one that I hope sets them up for the future. We were overwhelmed by the number of students who wanted to take part. Many of these students were Pupil Premium students but all of them were very keen historians and it was wonderful to have the freedom to offer them places to attend.” 

From: Sandroyd School, Wiltshire

“The excitement and curiosity the school festival instils in young pupils is palpable, serving as a fantastic opportunity for children of all ages to delve into historical subjects outside of the classroom.”

From: Home Educator

“This is just a quick message to say thank you for everything yesterday. Our volunteer helper Ben struck the balance of helping without being intrusive absolutely perfectly and made sure we had everything we needed. The talks were interesting and informative and the living history exhibitors were knowledgeable and friendly. The children and adults all have the most amazing time!”

From: Hurlingham Academy, London

“I just wanted to send an email to say a huge thank you for everything yesterday. The festival was so wonderful and all the staff/volunteers/educators were incredible. 

The students have been absolutely buzzing about their time there and it was so lovely to get them out into the countryside – so thank you so much for everything.

We have a few outstanding payments with them, but I will make sure the outstanding invoice is paid ASAP.  We are so grateful for the help received from Rathbones who funded our coach. We wouldn’t have been able come without that assistance, thank you.

I think we would absolutely love to come again next year, so we look forward to that!”

From: Port Regis School, Wiltshire

“The Chalke History Festival is an exceptional day out for our children, and for many, one of the highlights of their time at school. The living history tents bring the subject to life, giving our children a real empathy and understanding of what it was like for people living in the past. The speakers showcase their expertise for all ages and activities are always interactive. Who wouldn’t feel inspired and enthused when taking part in a re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar, making food from the Roman period or listening to storytelling about Nelson and the Battle of the Nile? They certainly come away buzzing about history!”

From: Oak Academy, Dorset

“The Chalke Valley History Festival is a unique opportunity for our pupils to engage with history on both an academic (wealth of talks and presentations) and practical level (the living history workshops). We have high aspirations for our pupils, the majority of whom live in an area in the top 10% of socio-economic deprivation in England. Approximately fifty per cent of our pupils are eligible for pupil premium funding, so even with the discounted ticket price, the Festival would be unaffordable without the incredibly generous transport subsidy of £700. This meant, we were able to offer an inclusive trip, which was inspirational and enriching. For some of our pupils, it was the first time they had travelled outside of Bournemouth. We cannot express how grateful we are and hope to bring our new year 7s and 10s to the Festival again this year.”

From: Millfield School, Dorset

“Just wanted to say that we had a fab day – brilliant talks, good new venue and our students all had a great day. I think one of my colleagues may have mentioned that we would love to bring our year 9s next year but there isn’t currently any provision for this. Not a problem but we wonder if you might consider adding them – year 9 is when they choose their GCSE options and so it would be really great for history recruitment!”

From: Longford C of E Primary School, Wiltshire

“I am writing to express my heartfelt thanks to the Chalke Valley History Festival Management Team. I have been privileged, over the last 5 years, to accompany Y6 pupils from three different local schools, and indeed, diverse, social and economic backgrounds, to the Schools’ Festival.

From an educational perspective, the History Festival is a gift. Children are able to experience life in the past, think about the challenges faced by our ancestors, appreciate their craftsmanship and ingenuity, as well as grapple with the unpalatable dilemmas of survival, war and peace. For history lovers, the Festival is an absolute delight. From my perspective, the Festival helps me, and my learned colleagues, deliver an enriched and informed curriculum, as part of our commitment to nurture ‘well-rounded’ and thoughtful young people: our future.”

From: Longparish Primary School, Wiltshire

“Of all the class trips that I have taken children on in my 20+ years in Primary Education, none can compete with the amazing day my year 6 class had at the Chalke Valley History Festival. We had a whole celebration assembly for parents on all the activities that they took part in.

Without the subsidies in costs of both the transport and tickets we would not be able to attend, or indeed come back in future years. Coach transport costs are excessively high these days. So, I just want to pass on my thanks and hope that this can continue in the future, allowing us to return with a new cohort of keen pupils.”

From: Dauntsey’s School, Wiltshire

“The Chalke History Festival is fantastic. During festival week, a bucolic corner of South Wiltshire is turned into a haven for history lovers. Our pupils visit on a bespoke school day tailored to the curriculum in which they experience talks, workshops, demonstrations and a thorough exploration of historical periods from the Neolithic to the Twentieth Century. The simulations, in particular The Trench experience and the World War Two Special Ops, are particular highlights.”

From: Poole High School, Dorset

“I just wanted to email to say thank you for such a wonderful event today. I had been previously, 2 years before, but my colleague had not and was pleasantly surprised. With this, the students were so engaged in the talks that were taking place and they LOVED the living history around the site. The trench reenactment was wonderful as well and enjoyed by all. As an NQT, this was my first solo organised trip, and it was made a breeze by your organisation, so thank you for that.

The talks were excellently pitched to the students, and there was such an amazing variety. I am currently looking at coming again on Saturday or Sunday! Thanks again.”

From: Focus School, Wiltshire

“I just wanted to express my thanks for the past three days at the CVHF.  All of my students really enjoyed the experience and especially loved the Horrible Histories talk, the civil war encampment and the WWI trench experience, I especially enjoyed the Dan Snow talk!   Please express my thanks to all those involved.  The helpers on the three days were brilliant and very professional and really made things easier in terms of finding my way around the camp and getting our group to where they needed to be. My only criticism would be that some talks were not engaging enough for the audience, especially the year 7/8 talks. They really needed to be more lively (Castles and Medieval Warfare by Dr Caddick-Adams &  Queen Victoria by Kate Hubbard).  Their subject knowledge/background/professionalism is not in question at all just that they need to ‘get down’ to the age of the children in the audience.  They should take lessons from Martin Brown & Dan Snow who were just brilliant at engaging and inspiring the audience.  I really enjoyed the talks and find them really interesting, but the students didn’t really engage with them at all.  .  I hope you don’t mind me saying.

All in all it was an absolutely brilliant three days for me and I will definitely be back in some form or another next year.”

From: Gillingham School, Dorset

“Just wanted to say what a fantastic time we had at your festival with our Year 10 & 12 students last Wednesday. The calibre of speaker was superb (a great surprise that Dan Snow was also an additional speaker too) and we were delighted that you had really listened to our feedback regarding the new Alevel specifications and had organised talks that reflected this – For this we are hugely grateful. I have included below an email I was sent from a parent of one of our Year 10 students, a fitting testament to a great historical day out:

‘A big thank you to you and your team for the Chalke Valley History Festival trip yesterday.

I never seen Jack so full of enthusiasm and facts after going on a school trip. It was obviously a fantastic experience and very interesting.’

From: Peter Symonds, Hampshire

“Thank you so much for a fantastic schools festival on Wednesday, we all had a wonderful time. Between us, we attended all the various talks and the students and staff found them all informative, stimulating and much to discuss in the mini bus home!  We also enjoyed the trench – the rain adding to the whole thing!

We attended the talk on the Crusades given by Jeremy Black and were interested that the tent was so full, and therefore lots of other schools are teaching this too, which led us to wonder if it would be possible to start up a schools forum on this, to share ideas and maybe resources, it is part of our new course and we are still developing this.  Would you know which schools attended and also would it be possible to contact them?

Many thanks again for an excellent day.  I also came on Saturday with various members of my family and we all had a great day then too!”

From: Shapwick School, Somerset

“We had a really fabulous day yesterday – Hugh, our guide, was incredibly helpful and the new site felt somehow a little less sprawling and it was very easy to let the pupils have something of a free reign, but nearly always visible!  The parking and logistics were really well organised, the space in the Dining Tent really appreciated for storage and sitting-time and the time the various living history stands had to talk with pupils was really open-ended and pupil-friendly. Please pass on our comments – the nature of CHVF schools festival is just what works best for our pupils & thanks to all concerned!”

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