Testimonials - Living History Hub

Great Fire of London Session – Waverton Primary Year 2

Thanks Ed, all of Year 2 including the SEND children had a fantastic day learning about the Great Fire of London. The activities you planned and did with them really brought the time period to life. They loved making the walls with wattle and daub, especially the cow poo! and especially when you jump in the bucket to squish it all together. They love the science aspect of why wood burnt and why brick didn’t. They all came away from the day with a great understanding of why and how London burnt.
Thanks again!
Angela Croft
Waverton

English Civil War and Trial of King Charles Day – Bradley Green Primary School

‘Ed from the Living History Hub came to visit our Y5 class during our Civil War topic. Ed worked hard to bring the subject completely alive for the children. He came armed with a wide range or resources and well planned activities that engaged every child. In one short day we made parchment, ink and quills and practiced writing like a cavalier. We learned about different occupations, and found out which grizzly jobs children would have had. We acted the trial of King Charles, complete with costumes and even a severed head, all supplied by Ed! The children even had the opportunity to behead a melon with an axe! This had to be the children’s highlight of the day. The children all were left in awe after their day and went home hungry to learn more about the Civil war. Thank you Ed, you brought history alive for Y5, and they will never forget your visit!

Jenn Clayton, Year 5 Teacher

Roman Day with a Difference – Acorns Primary School

Hi Ed

Thank you for such an amazing day! The children have been truly inspired to learn more. They were totally engaged in the activities. Mrs Gelder was delighted that her SEND children were involved and keen to have a go. Thank you for your positive feedback about the children’s behaviour and good manners. I passed your comments and email onto our leadership team. They were delighted with your feedback.

I have spoken to some of the children from each class; they said they really enjoyed the lesson and activities very much. We look forward to inviting you back and hopefully we could work on a bigger project.

Many thanks

Vicky Clarke

Year 5 Teacher

Acorns Primary School

Whole School Celt Project – Horn’s Mill Primary School

The whole school including all of my staff had an amazing couple of days that were supported fully by not only your enthusiasm on the day but the detailed and commitment to the preparation before the event. The whole project was made possible by you taking the hours of preparation and gathering resources out of our already very busy hands!!. I have had hugely positive feedback from families – much on our twitter which you could use in your marketing stuff if you so wish. Thank you so much – we will definitely be in touch again in future!

Sharon Wyatt

Head Teacher

Horn’s Mill Primary School

50th Year Celebrations – Waverton Primary School

We asked Ed to help us with our 50th year celebrations at Waverton. His brief was to demonstrate Waverton history through the ages and ensure that the whole community felt involved with our project.

His ideas were very ambitious and exciting and proved very popular. The children loved the fact that they had to run the local history workshops that he created and they demonstrated these to the visitors during our Open Day.… It included making Wattle and Daub structures, creating a working vegetable plot, quil, ink and parchment making and bread and butter making. He even set up a working forge on the school playground, complete with furnace!

Ed is passionate about ALL history and this rubbed off on the children and our VIP’s and will help bring any area of local, national and international history to life. He has recently been in school for a day with our year 5 children for a “Wow” day to help launch their Ancient Greece theme. He is a great person to get the children immersed in and talking about history and we always look forward to working with him here at Waverton’

Simon Talbot

Head Teacher

Waverton Primary School

Whole School History Project – Parkgate Primary School

During the academic year of 2016/17 I, as Curriculum and History Lead, I employed the services of Ed Abrams and his company, The Living History Hub to deliver curriculum specific year group history sessions for our children.

The Living History Hub Company is a forward thinking educational service offered for schools to enrich and enhance the way that History is delivered to children. He was tasked to plan and implement bespoke history sessions within each year group and activities ranged from re-enacting the trail of Charles Ist to creating what could possibly be the world’s largest pinhole camera which tied in perfectly with year group topics of Crime and Punishment and Ancient Islam. The children’s engagement and excitement during The Living History Hub’s time in school was palpable and the company definitely took what can generically be quite a ‘boring’ subject for children and made history come alive. Pupil voice since these whole school sessions has proven the impact that Ed had with the subject of history now ranking as one of the most popular subjects in our school curriculum.

Our recent HMI report highly praised this whole school project and commented on the value of employing such companies to enrich curriculum in foundation subjects.

I fully endorse the services offered by The Living History Hub and will be continuing to liaise with them regarding further sessions

S. Hewson

Curriculum Lead

History and Geography Lead

Parkgate Primary School

Cheshire, CH64 6SW

Ancient Greek Myths, Legends and the Senate – Waverton Primary School Year 5

Ed Abrams from the Living History Hub really enabled history to come alive in our sessions with Year 5. Our workshops were split into two parts – planning and then experiencing – and were cross curricular in nature. The pupils really enjoyed dressing up for the Greek Senate and participating in the debate which they had researched and planned previously. The parade around the school made an interesting stir and the pupils loved it! Making the mythical character masks, to go along with their stories,was a highlight.

The next Year 5 group can’t wait to take part! Thanks Ed!

Local History Session – Dee Point Primary School, Chester

Thanks so much for the magical moments this week with our Year 5’s it was fantastic. For me it was brilliant to stand back and watch them flourish and show what they have learned but also to actively engage in what you were doing with them. The highlight I believe was marching through the city!!! Magic moments Ed, brilliantly created.

Conlan School, Chester – Travel and Tourism Workshop

We at Conlan School highly recommend the Living History Hub due to their staff being organized, engaging and dynamic!. The 45 Italian students loved the Travel and Tourism workshop provided; especially the tour of Chester with the staff wearing period clothing. I recommend any school to take part in this activity, It’s both fun and informative and the students loved it and we will definitely The Living History Hub Company again.

Ysgol Friars, Bangor – Wales in the Civil War Study

‘The session was tailored to meet our specific needs and there was excellent planning involved before the visit. The pitch was at the right level, both engaging and enthusing the learners. Ed’s passion for the subject transmitted well, and the friendly nature of the tour encouraged our Sixth Form students into asking more questions. We initially struggled to find any information out about Wales during the Civil Wars that would allow our students to bring such an important part of our Welsh history to life. However, Ed and his team manage to do this very well. I would highly recommend the tour for schools or anyone at all interested in the period.’

Upton Westlea Primary – Stone Age Session

The children thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon- in particular seeing what you were wearing and guessing the animal! haha! I think even if we had planned the same lessons, there is something special about someone coming in to deliver it. We wrote up instructions last week for how to make Stone Age paint, so it was an excellent cross-curricular link with English, which is something we need to focus on. I found that the children remembered a lot of detail and some used it as a springboard to capture their imagination (such as, pierces and stir the berries with a sharp arrow head). I’m still looking for a place for the cave wall… it’s stunning to see! I know Kath ( our Head ) was also impressed and is happy to have you back in the school for other areas. I’ll keep promoting you to the other teachers! 🙂

Waverton Primary School – Great Fire of London Session

Living History Hub provided an exciting introduction to the Great Fire of London. The children were transported back in time to 1666 via a mixture of video, chat and hand’s-on activities. They were taught about how the fire started, why it burned for so long, about life during the 17^th century. They were encouraged to ask and answer questions and thoroughly enjoyed making wattle and daub structures, even with the cow poo. A great day had by all!

Guilden Sutton Primary School – WWII ‘Dig for Victory’ Day

‘We had a fantastic day! The children, Mrs Lunney and myself loved every moment – thank you! It was even better than we thought and very appropriate to what we are studying as a class. Being outside and seeing the children learning and working together in their groups was a pleasure to see and A BIG THANK YOU to Ed who was wonderful with the children; he had a calm and… caring manner. The children and teachers thought he was great!’

Abbey Gate College – Local History Module

We used The Living History Hub for the last 3 years to help us investigate the local English Civil War Battle of Rowton Heath. This important but little known event took place on our doorstep in 1645 and Ed Abrams brought it alive for our Year 8 pupils.

Following a colourful talk in the college – where Ed (sporting his own period costume) discussed the causes of the war and the key locations in and around Chester – the year group visited the site of the Battle itself. Here the pupils were taken to the sites where the key skirmishes took place. They even did some pike drill on the actual battlefield and many sensed the eeriness of this long forgotten killing scene.

Back in Chester the other half of the Year group were shown around the city walls by Ed’s colleague Viv. The pupils were taken into the normally closed King Charles Tower and many wrote afterwards how strange it was to stand in the spot where the King watched the final stages of the battle. Viv showed them various features that helped tell the story of the city’s gruelling siege and we were all drawn to buildings and sites that we had never really noticed before.

The Living History Hub have been hugely positive, accommodating and instructive into our local History module. I wouldn’t hesitate recommending them.

Mike Dickins

Head of History and Politics

Abbey Gate College

Dee Point Primary, Chester – English Civil War Local History Study

When embarking on the Civil War project with my class, I was initially a little dubious as my knowledge in this area is somewhat limited- Extensive ‘Googling’ did nothing to qualm my fears of trying to map out a unit of work based around the topic.

However, being introduced to Ed Abrams was absolutely inspiring and really supported me in planning out an engaging unit of activities that, not only met National Curriculum Requirements, but also forged fantastic cross-curricular links across all subject areas.
I initially met with Ed to lay out the foundations of the project: his expertise and passion in all things ‘Civil War’ really helped to make this process simple. The combination of having an expert in the field, and myself as a qualified teacher, ensured that we explored the topic in greater depth and thus found more creative ways to match it to objectives in different areas of the curriculum.
The main aspect of the work with Ed, was an entry point and end point to the planned unit of work, whereby Ed and a fellow colleague supported the children in school, and then later on a trip to a Civil War battle site.

The interactive approach to these activities was absolutely fantastic, and the whole class were enthralled when meeting King Charles and being ordered into drill formations by a Civil War sergeant!

The overall impact on learning and engagement across subjects was incredibly positive, and the children produced some fantastic persuasive writing, art work, DT projects and Science investigations based on what they had learned.
A very rewarding experience for all involved!

Christleton Primary School, Chester – Beeston Residential / Beeston Castle Session

The children and teachers at Christleton Primary School have enjoyed working with The Living History Hub Team this term. Year 3 had an exciting, interactive and informative day visiting Beeston Castle as part of their residential visit- with a real civil war soldier leading our tour! We found out about what life as a soldier would be like, practised battle drills and built shelters. A few weeks later, Years 2,3 and 4 took part in a living history day and learned about 17th century History, including what it was like to live in Chester at this time. They found out about the Round Heads and Cavaliers and created their own battle standard. A big thank you to Ed and his team for working with us to share their knowledge and bring local History to life.

St Oswalds Primary School, Chester – 17th Buildings ( Compare and Contrast ) Session

What can I say? You truly brought history alive- as you promised you would! The kids are absolutely buzzing from all the excitement this morning. Wow! You are so talented at what you do. Your ability to keep an audience interested is amazing, and your subject knowledge extends way beyond anybody I’ve ever worked with before. Your presentation contained just the right amount of blood and poo discussion to keep the Year 6 interested too!

Church Drive Primary School, Port Sunlight – 17th Century Chester and Port Study

I took a large class of year 5s on this ‘Living History’ trip which was truly brought to life by the wonderful guide ‘Ed’. From the moment we arrived the children were fully engaged by Ed, who was dressed as a Cavalier in a fabulous costume. We spent the day enthralled with an engaging and enthusiastic guide, who had well planned and prepared a day packed full of exciting activities and talks. We will not hesitate to return in the future and recommend any school try the tours out for themselves.