From Britain in the Blitz to the Victorians, Flambards Theme Park in Cornwall offers schools a range of activities and displays that support many areas of the History curriculum.
Teachers will love Flambards as a school trip choice – because it combines both learning and a theme park experience for pupils. In fact, the park describes itself as a great place for an end of term visit, although the topical nature of its historic exhibits make it a beneficial place to visit at any time of the school year.
Not only does the park have a number of features that link to topics in the History curriculum for Key Stages 2 to 4, it also has a range of theme park rides – great for those school groups who go wild for an adrenaline-filled day outside of the classroom.
Led by the experts
Flambard’s model displays provide a hands-on look into two important periods of history: the Victorian period, and the Blitz. Living history characters can be booked in advance, so that visits are led by a re-enactor who will bring both environments to life.
Those visiting the Blitz exhibition, Britain in the Blitz, will meet the ARP warden and learn about their duties, while in the Victorian village, children will meet a street seller who knows all the comings and goings around Flambards Village.
This new aspect to educational visits helps children to explore and discuss life from times gone by, and allows them to be fully immersed in the experience. Talks by these living history characters can also be arranged and tailored to cover specific topics, and a quiz is available, too.
Pictured: The Victorian Village at Flambards.
The Victorians
Schools can step back over 100 years into Flambards’ Victorian Village. With an atmosphere of bustling streets and alleyways and hidden nooks and crannies, the village is an all-round sensory experience – think sights, smells and real cobble stone roads.
Students can visit over 50 different shops and domestic situations at the site, all of which have been recreated with thousands of genuine artefacts and ‘populated’ by life-sized models of people and animals. A spotter trail helps children of any age look carefully at the locations on show and discover lots of facts about bygone life.
School groups can also discover the strict Victorian rules for classroom behaviour at the village school and step into the stores to see all the old advertising packaging. All aspects of life can be viewed, from the dentist’s chair to the blacksmiths, and even a Victorian home.
The Blitz
The Britain in the Blitz exhibition is a life-size re-creation interpreting war-time. A visit will illustrate what life was like on the Home Front, and children can peep in to a wartime kitchen, a classroom or onto a railway platform to see models of children evacuating.
Pupils will hear the deafening air-raid sirens and feel the floor shake as a bomb strikes: this sensory experience is a life-sized recreation of a London street during war-time and children will be fully immersed into war-time life.
School groups can also learn inside the War Gallery which is closely linked with the Britain In The Blitz exhibition and is a respectful tribute to all of the men and women of Great Britain and The Commonwealth who served in World Wars One and Two.
Teachers looking to book a school trip to Flambards will find more information at www.flambards.co.uk.
