Year 6 - Visit to Chepstow Castle

Straight after half term, Year 6 headed into Wales to visit Chepstow Castle, started within one year of the Norman Conquest in 1067. The Castle was built in 4 stages and it is a very effective tool for the pupils to be able to develop their understanding of how a castle develops. Initially built as a rectangular keep with a wall around it, it looks to be far too basic to defend against any serious attack, but this was well ahead of the technology available to any attacker from Wales or the Saxons. 

Gradually as the attackers’ skills developed, so did the castle and it is very easy to see the different stages of development. Led round by Mr Hicks of the History Squad (dressed as a medieval archer) and myself, the children covered all aspects of the castle. 

By lunchtime they were ready for a break and a visit to the shop before the afternoon started with a demonstration of the firing of a crossbow and longbow by Mr Hicks. The group were mesmerised by his skill with the crossbow – the first bolt hit the base of the target, he then proceeded to knock a skull off a stick with arrows fired from the longbow, before leaving his final arrow stuck in a 3cm wide stick. 

All of this under time pressure with 12 arrows fired off in a minute! He then showed how to realistically deal with an enemy soldier – he was very scathing of the Hollywood version of this, and Robert, Sebastian, Max and Benedict looked rather worried as to how far the demonstration would go. He then showed how to remove an arrowhead from his unfortunate victim (Relax - he didn’t really hit anybody – he removed an arrow from the head of his dummy of Henry V aided well by Nurse Libby.) This demonstration was suitably gory, and not surprisingly there were no volunteers to suck the honey (used as an anaesthetic) out of the wound. 

All in all a very good day for Year 6 – they will have taken in a lot of detail and hopefully linked their class work to real life in medieval times.

Click here to see some of our photos