More CAT Kits for Kent Schools

It was a year ago that Canterbury Archaeological Trust held the CAT KIT training sessions for local teachers and sent them off happy with their new 'toys'. Since then I have been evaluating how the kits are being used in the classroom by talking to pupils and teachers and collating feedback. At the end of the summer term teachers were invited for a strawberries and cream tour of the Trust's headquarters and group discussion about their experiences.

Children and teachers have clearly been enjoying themselves! The feedback has been very positive and we are delighted with the results of this project. Primary schools have the flexibility to do cross-curricula work and have used the CAT KITs in the classroom to teach History, Maths, Art, Science, Literacy and IT. Teachers like the combination of resources in a CAT KIT - the finds, the teaching ideas and reconstruction photos on the website. As they become familiar with the kits they begin to see other ways of using the materials.

The broad 'Archaeology' theme of the kit also makes it a useful resource for introducing 'What is History?' to young secondary school students. Over the past few months, eleven and twelve year olds at the Orchard School, Canterbury, have been having new classrooms built at their site and they took the opportunity to look at modern and ancient building technology using CAT KIT materials and talking to the builders!

The project has been publicised in archaeological periodicals, the local press and at conferences and public events including the Society's History Show. Through publicity on the CAT website, I am also speaking with Harvard University who would like to adapt the CAT KIT idea and produce their own version for teachers in the USA.

Building on this experience, we will continue with our long term plan of building more kits to go into more Kent schools. With the help of the Kent Archaeological Society we have begun to collect suitable material and we are aiming for the first of the next tranche of kits to be available to schools in West Kent next year.

All parties involved are agreed that this selective use of archaeological material is very beneficial and CAT is very happy that our partnership with the Society is enabling us to extend this project.

To find out more about the CAT KITs project go to www.canterburytrust.co.uk

Marion Green
CAT Education Officer

ABOVE: A CAT Kit, and school children enjoying the contents.

"Cool! That's well good" (child!)

"The children were highly motivated and wanted to do more."

"One of the main factors that appealed to the children was the fact that everything in the CAT KIT is the genuine article!"