Viking Education in Schools - History Specialists
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Information For Parents
Dear Parent/Guardian

The chances are that as you have come to this page as a result of a letter you have received  from your child's school informing you about a proposed visit from us to do specialist Viking & Saxon day at the school sometime in the near future and possibly asking for a donation towards the cost of the day.

You are also probably wondering why the school is having a specialist history company like ours come into the school for a day and not arranged an out of school trip to an historical site or museum. Well we hope that through this web page and the rest of our site and the information contained in it we can answer all your questions.

First of all there are only a few places schools can visit in conjunction with the Viking and Saxon topic, the Jorvik Centre in York and West Stow Anglo at Bury St Edmunds are two of the best but both are in extremes of the country and will most likely require a long coach trip and result in a short visit.

Other reasons schools choose a day from us is the cost. Typically a school trip will include: 
  • Coach hire: Which alone is normally more than the cost of one of our days, it is little wonder schools look for alternatives.
  • The need for extra members of staff: schools have to ensure there is a minimum adult to child ratio for any out of school activity which normally is around 1 adult to every 10 children where as in school it is probably twice that and all staff have to hold an enhanced CRB certificate which means another cost.
     
  • Admission Fees: To the site and remember the cost of all the teachers and accompanying adults will probably have to be paid for as well.
  • Distance: In all likelihood most of the day out will be spent on a coach.

It all adds up to a day that can cost considerably more than the cost of one of our days but cost aside there are also other excellent reasons for having an in school event like ours.

  • Value for money: Our average day starts at 9:15 am and runs through to 3 pm or later and we even spend a large part of lunchtime with the children (by comparison a visit to the Jorvik Centre lasts less than 2 hours and visits to other sites can consist of only walking around the site listening to a recording) and the weather cannot spoil our day.
  • Our staff: We have a detailed expert knowledge and passion for the Viking and Saxon period which we are constantly expanding on. Anyone who has seen one of our days will tell you that we get a great deal of enjoyment out of bringing the period to life for the children. It is not just a job for us it is our passion.
  • Hands on experience: Unlike most museums we allow the children to hold, touch, try on and use 99% of our artefacts, which are some of the best quality available and some of them are better than the replicas you can see in museums. We bring over 500 separate artefacts into schools and the majority of which the children can handle.
  • Role Play: As well as portraying a period character ourselves we encourage as many children as possible to take part in different sections of the day, this enables them and their friends who are watching to get a real feel of the period and history as a whole.
  • Structured day: Our day is structured to fit the requirements of each school we visit and can be tailored to fit a schools individual needs and timetable. We have a large amount of experience of working in special schools and with children with special needs.
  • Enjoyment: Our days are designed to be fun and memorable for the children as well as being highly educational. If you read the selection of letters both from children and teachers you will see just how much both have enjoyed one of our days. The children remember our visits as one of the best days they ever had in school for years to come and always come and say hello when we return to the school in the following years.
  • Experience: We have been providing our history days since 1992 and have now made 1000's of school workshops and seen over 100,000's of children. We have been visiting some of our schools on a regular basis since we started the company and in that time we have been featured in many news papers and magazines and we were fortunate enough to have been featured in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) the leading and most respected educational magazine in Britain (read the article). More recently we were proud to have been asked to provide Viking Workshops at the British Museum, which we believe is a true measure of our reputation.

If you are still unsure about donating towards the cost of the day think about this: The donation you are being asked for is probably less than a cinema ticket, two drinks in the pub, a gallon of fuel, a fish & chip supper and compared to the enjoyment and benefit your child will get from spending a day with us we think it is a very small price to pay!

We are one of the oldest and most popular companies making Viking & Saxon school workshops with over 20 years experience and one of the few who make visits all over the UK.

We only provide Viking and Saxon workshops because we believe the quality of our days and the quantity and quality of the aretfacts we use would have to be sacrificed if we were to cover other historical periods as well.

We average over 200 Viking School Workshops per year and 1000's of different schools have experienced one of our Viking school workshops with a large majority of them regularly booking a return visit.

If you want more information on what we do please email us at schools@longship.co.uk 

 

All our staff who make school visits hold an enhanced CRB Certificate

Recent Feedback from the British Museum

 
"I want to say a huge thank you for providing 3 excellent workshops for our Young Friends for our Viking Invasion day, they had a great day and it couldn?t have been possible without your professional fun attitude.
I hope we can work together again soon".
Best regards, Sarah Kinsella
Membership Events Co-ordinator
British Museum

Read more feedback