Year 8 Medieval Day

On Thursday 29 April Year 8 History students took part in a school-based Medieval Day to consolidate their knowledge and understanding of medieval Europe, a popular topic in the Year 8 course.  During the day the students were treated to a medieval show, a Black Death presentation and a Black Death game on the Oval (run by Year 10 Elective students) and a nail-biting castle-building competition which was judged by a panel of experts, including the Principal Ms McMurray, Year 8 Year Adviser Ms Propsting, History Head Teacher Mr Boyle and History teacher Mr Latimer, at the end of the day.

Group 5 (Joylin Zhou, Eva Yuan, Ella Lo, Abigail Ouw, Min Park) were deserving winners in the castle building competition and their well-constructed castle also won the people’s choice award. Well done girls!

Some student reflections on the day included:

I think the activity I enjoyed most was the medieval show. The reason for this was that it gave us the most insight into what life was like in the medieval times, was a very rare and special opportunity to look at medieval objects and weapons up close, and that it was just really cool, fun and engaging. Some things I learned about medieval Europe were:

How medieval war tools worked in detail; how heavy the armour was, what kind of swords they had and the progression of war technology throughout the age.
How powerful the technology they had back then was; The sheer power of the weapons like ballistas and crossbows shocked me, as I thought that weapons from medieval times would be much less powerful
The interesting way medieval names were constructed in Europe and the history of some names; for example, how the prefix ‘Mac’ in a last name means son in Scottish, and the same for ‘O’ in Ireland – Max Hutchinson
We learned about the Scold’s Bridle was a medieval torture device mainly used on women. It was a sort of metal frame that would be placed around the head, it had a sharp piece of metal facing inwards that would go inside the mouth of the wearer. The wearer would be led around and often their teeth would break – Alistair Gray and Jai Sabir

I learned that the armour could take weeks to months to build in some medieval countries and each country had their own special armour, sword and shield – Riley Hendra

The hands-on part made the show much more interesting, being able to experience what medieval knights and soldiers wore was truly an astonishing experience – David Sun

I liked the ‘Black Plague’ game. I liked how this game was interactive and for everyone. It was sunny and there was a lot of walking, but at least it was with friends – Robert Parkes

I enjoyed the castle making because it was the most fun activity and we could be creative with the design of the castle- make it to our own preference – Cailin Woodbury

I really enjoyed the castle building activity as I thought it was fun making the castle and fun with friends. It was kinda stressful when we didn’t have much time left and hadn’t finished the castle. I enjoyed it because we got to work with our friends. I also enjoyed the feedback phase as I think it gave a better understanding of the castle structures and other people’s castles – Ashley Kim

But some groups also experienced some challenges with the castle building activity:

First of all, the glue that was supposed to keep the main structure together did not dry at all, so the castle kept on falling apart, resulting in us giving up the glue and using tape. We were also running out of time when we were building the bumpy things on the exterior structure – Ashley Kim

In the castle building we made the castle too big and it fell apart – Matthew Wong

The History faculty commends Year 8 for their enthusiastic participation and everyone else who helped make Medieval Day such a success.

Mr de Bres

Medieval Day organiser