Northdown Primary School pupils travel back to Medieval period

'Medieval knights' at Northdown Primary

Year 5 pupils at Northdown Primary School, Margate, delved into the wonderful world of Medieval Britain last week when they were visited by a knight.

The visitor, who arrived complete with an armoury of weapons from that time, taught them all about what it was like to be a knight in the era. They learnt about the training programme that knights went through and how hard it was.

Year 5 teacher Sasha Bryant said: “As part of our Year 5 topic on the Middle Ages, we had a medieval work shop to develop the children’s understanding of what it took to become a medieval knight. The children were wowed by an array of medieval weapons and learned how they were used and why different weapons were used for maximum impact on their enemies.”

The children thoroughly enjoyed the bloodthirsty session – all weapons were capped with safety devices thankfully –  and were able to use this learning in their history lessons to create beautifully detailed double page spreads.

Robert, aged 10, said: “It was good because I got to hold weapons and pretend I was a knight. It helped me understand what it was like to be a knight. First, knights are a page, then a squire, and finally a knight. At my age, I would still be a page so I would be a messenger – sort of a slave.”

Not everyone was impressed by life in the Middle Ages however. Lexi, aged 10, enjoyed the workshop but is glad she isn’t a girl in medieval times after learning that she would not be taught to write.

She said: “My best part was holding the weapons. I felt happy because it wasn’t something I’d normally do, but I learnt that only pages could write and only boys could be pages. I really enjoy writing so that would make me sad.”