Friday Headlines
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Year 9 students visit Oxford's Ashmolean
08 December 2017
On Wednesday 29 November, Year 9 accompanied the Classics department, Mrs Hewison and Miss Massey on a visit to The Ashmolean Museum and the Ioannou Centre for Classical Studies in Oxford. Year 9 were very excited to visit the town as well as the surrounding colleges.
When we arrived, the year split into two groups: one group went into the museum to explore the galleries and have teaching sessions in which we were even allowed to handle some of the artefacts. The other group went to the University’s Ioannou Centre for Classical Studies for a lecture on Ptolemaic Egypt, delivered by a renowned Oxford lecturer.
For lunch the girls all went to visit three different Oxford colleges and enjoyed a lovely tour. Some of the year group paid a visit to last year’s Head Girl Bethany Lucas at Keble, another group met with last year’s Deputy Head Girl Malala Yousafzai at Lady Margaret Hall and the last group visited Mrs McAlister’s old college, St John’s. It was wonderful to meet up with EHS old girls, but before long we had to leave for our afternoon activities. Year 9 girls took the opportunity to conduct a quick fire interview with Bethany Lucas about her experiences at university just eight weeks into the term; you can read this at the end of the article.
In the afternoon, the girls swapped activities from the morning. During the handling session, we discovered things like arrowheads that the Ancient Greeks used, along with coins used for trade and broken handles from pots. The afternoon’s lecture was on the topic of Greek and Roman Medicine and some of the girls had the opportunity to have make-up applied to their hands so it looked like they were suffering from leprosy – one of the most widespread diseases in the Roman Empire!
Finally, all girls received a talk on the benefits of studying Classics and the many different disciplines that the subject encompasses. All the girls enjoyed the trip, and learnt something new in a different way. Many thanks to the teachers who organised the trip.
Year 9 visit Oxford's Ashmolean
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