• FESTIVAL FOR SCHOOLS

    To inspire, excite and inform pupils about history.

Festival for Schools 2021

There will not be a physical festival for schools this year.

Instead, we will be filming talks and living historians over the festival weekend, as well as others remotely, so edited versions will be available to schools from the beginning of the autumn term providing a long-term free digital resource.

We are immensely grateful to the following for supporting this digital project:

THE CALLEVA TRUST
THE ADRIAN SWIRE CHARITABLE TRUST
THE GOLDSMITHS’ COMPANY CHARITY
KOOS BEKKER
THE CHILTON FOUNDATION

The aim of the Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools is to excite, inspire and enthuse pupils about history. It is a very important part of our festival week and for three days we provide a wide range of curriculum-based subjects, drawing on leading historians, inspirational communicators, and the very best living historians around.

Bringing together the greatest historians, academics, living historians and TV personalities to educate on curriculum-based subjects, the Festival for Schools excites, inspires and enthuses about history.

If you would like to be notified when the 2021 digital schools programme becomes available, please leave your details here.

The aim of the Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools is to excite, inspire and enthuse pupils about history. It is a very important part of our festival week and for three days we provide a wide range of curriculum-based subjects, drawing on leading historians, inspirational communicators, and the very best living historians around.

Bringing together the greatest historians, academics, living historians and TV personalities to educate on curriculum-based subjects, the Festival for Schools excites, inspires and enthuses about history.

On all three days we provide a full Living History programme delivered with expertise and a fresh interactive and immersive approach. This year periods and areas covered will include Medieval, Tudors, Crime and Punishment, Middle East 1908-2011, Second World War, Cold War and History of Medicine. There will be a huge amount for pupils to see and do which will help bring the past alive in a unique and exciting way.

We will have plenty of new living history including Roman encampments, an Iron Age and Medieval settlement, a new 1940 trench, a range of historical specialist skills, and a large array of historical artefacts, including a fully working Russian WWII-era T-34 tank.

The Festival is about getting out of the classroom and bringing history alive in new and exciting ways. We are proud that a large cross-section of schools attend from all over the country. We will announce details of specific historians speaking in due course.

With over 12,709 children having attended since launching, the Festival for Schools makes a major contribution to history education and brings history alive in new and exciting ways. We hope you will attend!

2019 Festival saw nearly
2,500 pupils from 112 schools.

“The Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools gives students a fantastic and unique opportunity to engage with world-class historians in a way that we could never achieve in school.  The speakers and topics are carefully chosen to meet the requirements of a number of GCSE and A Level courses which really engages and inspires students.  One of the highlights of the festival for me has to be the reenactors who have such a wealth of knowledge and in-depth understanding of their eras, those with things that go bang are always a hit with the students!”

Cost

£27 per independent school pupil for the day

£17 per state school pupil for the day

£5 per pupil on Pupil Premium for the day

Funding your trip

We are conscious that for some schools, budgets for school trips are very tight. The Chalke Valley History Trust has a limited amount of funding available to help as many schools as possible to experience the Festival. For further information please contact us on 01722 780793 or [email protected]

The Schools’ Festival Days start at 10.15am and finish at 3.20pm.

There is plenty of parking for both coaches and minibuses and access to the site in Broad Chalke village, 25 minutes from Salisbury, is easy. Pupils can either bring a packed lunch or take advantage of the food stalls that are based at the Festival throughout the week.

For further information and booking queries please email [email protected] or call 01722 780793.

2020 SPEAKER LIST

MON 22nd & TUES 23rd JUNE 2020

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The History Tellers

THE GREATEST HISTORY OF BRITAIN SHOW

Chris Culpin

THE REFORMATION:
WHY DID RICHARD WHITING DIE?

Amanda Mitchison

BRUNEL: THE LIFE, TIMES AND DISASTERS OF THE GREATEST ENGINEER-CUM-SHOWMAN

James Holland

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Joanna Grochowicz

SCOTT, AMUNDSEN AND THE RACE TO THE SOUTH POLE

WEDNESDAY 24th JUNE 2020

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Dan Jones

THE CRUSADES

Inge Auerbacher with Guy Walters

I AM A STAR: CHILD OF THE HOLOCAUST

Thomas Penn

THE WARS OF THE ROSES

Dr Janet Dickinson

ELIZABETH I, WILLIAM CECIL AND THE AGE OF LEADERSHIP

Professor Mark Goldie

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION

Dr Hannah Young

SLAVERY AND EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF REFORM 1820-1860

Dr Chris Fuller

THE COLD WAR ARMS RACE AND THE EVOLUTION OF U.S. COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

WEDNESDAY 24th JUNE 2020

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Dr Peter Caddick-Adams

THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE PEACE SETTLEMENT

Hallie Rubenhold

THE FIVE: THE UNTOLD LIVES OF THE WOMEN KILLED BY JACK THE RIPPER

Professor Jonathan Schneer

LOVE, BETRAYAL, ASSASSINATION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN LENIN’S RUSSIA

Simon Mayall

A HISTORY OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST

James Holland

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Professor Abigail Williams

SHAKESPEARE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Paul Bavill & Kyle Glover

THE A-Z OF SURPRISING HISTORIC MEDICINE

The local branch of The English-Speaking Union invites you to take your pupils along to one of the workshops being run by people from the ESU during the Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools. The ESU is an educational charity devoted to promoting good written and oral communication and is particularly interested in the skills required for debating and public speaking.