Year 8 History, CED Tuesday 7 March

Year 8 History students were involved in a variety of activities designed to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Firstly, Emily, Karene and Maisie from the Trestle Arts base performed a shortened version of the musical ‘Yarico’ based on the story of a slave called Yarico and the relationship that she had with a white man – Thomas Inkle. This was followed with an interactive drama workshop led by our Trestle guests where the students explored the feelings of the slaves through the use of masks and actions. There was an also a storyboard activity led by History teachers which provided opportunities to use their evaluative and creative skills.

Students were asked to provide feedback about the day. Some of the comments included: “Informative, interesting, fun, exciting, involved, educational, interactive, variety, a lot to it, learning something in a different way, helped us understand what being a slave felt like”.

I asked some Year 8 students to write thank you messages to Trestle on behalf of their year group, here is an extract from one of them: “thank you for the spectacular show….it was very educational…you have put loads of work into performing it and I have definitely learnt something from it”.

Here is the full message from Maisie Jay (8S): “Thank you. I learnt a lot about Barbados. I am from Barbados it was really good to know about it. I did not realise so many slaves were from the Caribbean. You showed the story really well and your acting was great”.

Our thanks to Year 8 for their positive participation, and all the staff involved in helping to make the day such a success.

Ms Wensley, and the rest of the History Department