During Beyond Week, Year 7 experienced half a day of education at a Roman School with visitors from the University of Reading.
The day involved authentic Roman learning activities, such as practising public speaking skills one-to-one with a magister/magistra (teacher), transcribing stories onto wax tablets, and performing a short drama in Latin.
Here’s what some students had to say about what stood out to them the most:
“One activity that stood out to me was the Roman arithmetic, because it was surprisingly easy. I enjoyed using kidney beans and putting them in different columns of Roman numerals to add and subtract numbers to find the correct answer. I learned that it probably took a lot longer to work out complicated sums using Roman math. Roman education was not at all like modern school because the things you learn are very different, and the things that are the same have very different ways of learning them.” – Year 7 student
“The activity that stood out for me was the ink making because the process was really interesting and unusual. I enjoyed writing on the pottery and using the pestle and mortar because it gave an insight into how hard it was to make something we use on a regular basis. I learnt that a Roman would write scripts with it over and over to learn about Roman culture.” – Anoushka
“The activity that stood out to me the most was making the Roman spirit necklaces for curing injured or hurt people, emotionally or physically. I enjoyed getting to pick the colour of the charm and scraping the wax into a unique shape because it was very satisfying to do. I learnt that the Romans drew special animals on the wax that was supposed to do a unique thing like scaring away bad spirits.” – Sophie
