On Tuesday 16^th July, the history department took a group of Year 7 pupils to spend the day with the SHARE With Schools team at the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University.  The first activity of the day was a taster lecture where we first heard about the Welsh slate trade with Germany and the impact that this trade had culturally.  The second part of the lecture was about a mysterious Indian noble who appears in a painting in Cardiff University.  The historian has researched and identified him as somebody who went on to become a freedom fighter.  A fascinating story! 

Following the lecture, one group had a tour of the archaeological laboratory, where pupils heard about the research and conservation process.  They were shown a late 18^th century cannon that had been washed up from a shipwreck off Porthcawl.  The other group had a session where they investigated the life of a medieval peasant.  This took the form of a board game, which the pupils enjoyed very much. 

After lunch, our final session was a workshop about Ancient Mesopotamia.  There were several activities as part of the workshop, including making tributes for the king.  The session ended with pupils presenting their tributes to the king and Mr Smith was very honoured to be the King of Mesopotamia for 10 minutes!  During the day, pupils were given several opportunities to ask questions about university life and they were very interested about the possibility of them going to university themselves. 

Thank you to the SHARE With Schools team, we really enjoyed our day.