The Before and the After
A visit to Burwell House is not just about the 2 or 3 days that a group spends at the Centre. In order to gain full educational, personal, social and financial value from the trip, we believe that work done by the children before and after the visit is almost as important as the trip itself. Below, we outline some suggestions for the sort of work that might be undertaken, depending on the activities chosen.
Before
General
Look at Burwell on maps/in road atlases/on the Burwell Village website/on web-based map programmes (Multimap, Google Earth etc).
What is Burwell like? What bigger places is it near?
What landscape features are there? What services are there?
How might you travel there? What route might you take?
Diaries
The Burwell House diary (available on the Burwell House website) has a section to be completed before the actual visit. It explores children’s feelings, worries, expectations etc.
Burwell House Website
This site has an area especially for young people. It allows them to explore the site and find out a bit about the Centre. It also has a quiz.
Mapwork activities (Around the Grounds, Village Walks, Compasses, Smugglers Trail & Burwell Fox)
- Discuss what maps are and what situations they are useful in.
- Discuss what features maps have and why.
- Collect examples of different maps.
- Draw own maps of classrooms, schools, bedrooms, homes.
Burwell Fox specifically – Children could be asked to research in books or online about the lives of foxes before the trip. This will be of great benefit during the game.
Surrounding Area (Church, Castle, Devils Dyke, Wicken Fen and the Museum.)
Internet research can be done to find out about the specific sites which they are going to visit. The Burwell House website has many links to local sites of interest.
Team Building (Great Eggscape & Team Challenges)
If the children have talked about teamwork beforehand this would prove helpful. What are good characteristics of a team? What are bad ones? How should a team approach a task?
TV Studio
It will be very useful if the children watch some news programmes before the visit. It is helpful to observe the different features of the news programme (Introductions, Linking sentences, sign-offs etc) as well as the different characters (Anchorpeople, interviewers, interviewees, reporters, sports reporters, weather forecasters etc.)
Scriptwriting: It will have been discussed at the planning stage what form the programme the children produce may be in. If preparation is to be done, please use the TV studio preparation sheet available on our website.
Environmental activities(Ponds, Nature Detectives, Earthwalks, Harry Humus)
Any Habitats-based Science work will be useful to these sessions. Any knowledge on food chains, life cycles, habitats etc may prove valuable.
Victorians
has a wealth of information about the Ball family, who lived in Burwell house in Victorian times. This family will be the family who the group investigate during their work on the Victorians at Burwell House.
After
General
Thankyou letters to Burwell House staff and others are always welcomed, always read and are a really good (and real) literacy opportunity.
Mapwork
Children could annotate a blank map of the house and grounds with things they experienced during their week.
If children were particularly keen on the Orienteering activities, they could be encouraged to investigate Orienteering opportunities close to their homes. Links are provided via our website to various clubs, and clubs to be found all over the country.
Teambuilding activities
Children could be encouraged to design/investigate making and setting their own team challenges.
Environmental activities
There are a host of websites dedicated to the environment – some links are provided on our website. Children could be encouraged to investigate local nature reserves and nature organisations.
Sept11