Written by Maria, Year 13
Archaeology Club started as a conversation over coffee in the summer before Year 13, and began in earnest amongst a veritable maelstrom of UCAS and grades and personal statements in the autumn term. I had always dreamed of starting and running a club in sixth form, having attended several sixth-form-led clubs in my first years at OHS. After much hesitation, I decided to go for it, and advertised my new club at the Clubs Fair still with remarkably little idea of what my plan really was.
A year’s worth of content came together in several sessions of planning over that week, as I desperately drew on every resource available in order to make this an experience truly worth having for the Year 8 students who had taken a chance on me and my ideas. With a newfound sympathy for the job of a teacher, I went to the first session somewhat anxiously, as I had decided to go with running a mock excavation for the first few weeks of the club (which turned out to be great fun for everyone), but halfway through that first session I had a realisation that completely shifted my attitude and approach – they wanted to be here. They had taken time out of their lunch because they wanted to hear what I had to teach them, and suddenly my mind, which just the day before had struggled to come up with anything meaningful to say, was flooded with ideas and knowledge that I wanted to share.
Over the next year, I researched and studied and made presentations, studying not only the content of the sessions but also trying to learn how to run them – how to engage students, how to help them understand, how to make new and complex information exciting and inspiring. The sessions got more and more information-heavy as the year progressed, from nineteenth-century archaeologists to scientific dating methods, and yet my memory of those sessions is not of a daunting public speaking experience but of fun and laughter and the joy of shared knowledge.
They were not the only ones who learned something, though. Part of the joy of leadership is what you learn from those you lead, and I was certainly luckier than most to have a group of students as wonderful as these. I look back with a smile on their curiosity, intelligence and quick wit, qualities which pushed me to be a better teacher and a more confident leader, in order to prove a guide worthy of their willingness to learn and to try new things. I had to look at information I learned from new angles, because I couldn’t teach what I didn’t understand myself, and they rose to every challenge I set.
We grew together as learners, as archaeologists and as friends, and when it came to compiling a year of content into a magazine, we came together as a team and I found that they were now discussing and researching knowledge that had once been mine alone, shaping it into a form that others could learn from – exactly as I had done at the start of the year. Of all the new experiences I had in sixth form, running this club was one of the best of them.
Rarely do we have the opportunity to share our passions in a setting where the people listening to us are so interested to hear what we have to say, and seeing it through the eyes of my students, I fell in love with archaeology all over again.
“I have been part of Archaeology Club since the start,it has been amazing fun learning so much about different dating techniques and terrible (and funny) archaeologists. Maria is amazing and we had so much fun (she is the main reason I enjoyed it so much + my friends being there) and the information I have learnt has been interesting and engaging. I have loved being part of Archaeology Club this year!” Margaret
“Archaeology club this year has been absolutely awesome! Maria is really kind and the club was structured amazingly. The mock excavation in the first term was really engaging and fun, and the powerpoints on other aspects of archeology rounded off our knowledge. It has been an enlightening experience putting this information into a magazine, a huge thank you to Maria for starting us on this wonderful journey.” Abby
“I really enjoyed Archaeology club this year, I learnt a lot about both history and ancient culture, and it was also really fun. Maria was really nice, and an amazing club leader. She was really organised and made all the sessions fun and interactive.” Naomi