Bath’s Place Detectives

Teachers discuss their use of maps in the classroom with education consultant, Paula Owens

Engaging people with stories about our towns and cities’ past is incredibly important to us. We believe it is a great way to inspire people about their local history. The school room is the perfect place to ignite this passion, giving children a sense of place and local pride though our maps.

In March we had the great pleasure in hosting a workshop inviting Key Stage 2 teachers from the Bath area to collaborate with us on creating exciting and informative school resources. In partnership with the History of Bath Research group, we had a fantastic day working with our Historical Map of Bath publication, demonstrating how it can be used in the classroom and in fieldwork.

Our Place Detectives through Geography and History workshop was led by Paula Owens (education consultant) and Peter Vujakovic (Professor Emeritus of Canterbury Christ Church University) and included sessions about using maps for geography and history lessons, discussing various mapping resources with the teachers and a ‘field trip’ to the centre of Bath to explore the city with our map.

The day was a great success with excellent contributions from the participants and our partners from the History of Bath Research group. But this is just the start. We hope to roll out these workshops across England, Scotland and Wales, and create KS2 resources to help teachers teach local and national history topics as well as geography and more.

Participants complete a task using our Historical Map of Bath

Participants were very enthused by the work we are doing, and could recognise our publications and school resources as a very useful tool within the classroom, saying they are ‘easy to use’, ‘clear’ and are accessible for younger audiences. One teacher commented the local focus of our maps give school children a context they can relate to, which can help with their learning:

‘Children get more involved with a subject or topic if they have feelings about it… it’s all about making the subjects relevant to them’

Participants out on a 'field trip' in Bath using our Bath map

We have great ambitions for our education programme. To hear more about our education aspirations or if you are interested in organising one of these workshops, please contact Martin Wills at development@historictownstrust.uk or to donate to this work please click here to be taken to our donations page. Every donation – no matter how big or small – is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks to the University of Bath for providing us a meeting room for workshop. We are incredibly grateful for this kind support.