This morning I went to a meeting all about the new National Curriculum for primary schools that will come into force in September this year. One thing that I really hadn't realised until now was that the National Curriculum doesn't contain a full list of all the facts that the Government expect a child to learn in a specific school year, but instead it talks about all the skills that children are expected to learn in each subject, and it can then be left to individual schools to deliver a curriculum that is right for their school. This means that in history for example it's not prescribed that children must learn about the great fire of London and the Battle of Hastings, but that they must cover significant events. This might mean that some children do learn about these, but at another school they children may cover different periods of history that relate to their local community.
St Albans (or Verulamium as it then was) was a prominent Roman town and we're lucky enough there there are still lots of reminders of this in the city – as well as the excellent Verulamium museum there is also a hypercaust and Roman theatre ruins just a short walk from the city centre. It's therefore highly likely that my children will cover the Romans at some point at school, so it seems apt that for this week's LAdybird Tuesday I have chosen Julius Caesar and Roman Britain, one of the hugely popular Ladybird History series (series 561).
Now, I'm pretty sure that I studied the Romans at school, and I definitely remember visiting the Jorvik Museum in York, but all these years later my knowledge is a bit rough. This book goes form explaining what Britain was like before the Romans arrived to explaining about Caesar's first visit in 55 B.C. He then came back the following year and this was when the Roman's captured the fort which was then on the site of what is now St Albans.
The book goes on to tell of what Britain was like under Roman occupation and there's a huge amount of information in there about what happened in this time, and also quite a few references to St Albans. On a day when I've got a little bit more time I really hope to sit down and read this properly – and then finally take the kids to the Verulamium Museum (shockingly I've not been since I had kids!) and hopefully have enough background context to fully appreciate everything I see. If was super – organised I'd even manage to read it all before I go for dinner tonight with an expert in the subject!
If you have a collection of old Ladybird books then please feel free to join in with Ladybird Tuesday. There are no formal rules to follow, just leave a link to any post you write in the comments below and if you're feeling kind link back to my Ladybird Tuesday category here on Being Mrs C. Thanks!
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