2025 Group Projects

This year, our 31 students developed seven group engagement projects, some of which were taken into local schools or presented to local schools visiting the campus. The seven projects this year are outlined below. A big thank you to Classics teachers Cass Philipps and Katy Low from Barr's Hill School who visited our students to provide vital suggestions and feedback on their projects, and who allowed sessions to be trialled with their pupils in Coventry. We look forward to continuing working together in future years.

Building Communities Schools Competition

Linked to Warwick’s 60 the Anniversary, we ran a countrywide competition for schools. Pupils created a piece of work on the theme of 'Building Communities' which looked at ancient buildings/spaces and how these were used by communities in the ancient world. The winning entries each won a Lego pyramid for their school. The categories included creating something in Minecraft (a temple, or other public building), Creative Design (drawing, painting, digital design, and also building with Lego), and Creative Writing (storytelling, poetry, drama).

One of our student groups helped to develop this project, including creating resources and making decisions about the scope of the project and prize categories. As part of the project as a whole, our students also assembled a Lego Colosseum (right), working each week to construct the famous ancient landmark. Part of the aim was to have a Department-wide activity to bring people together and promote well-being among the students.

Over 60 schools from across the country signed up for the competition.

Ancient Jewellery Making Workshop

Four of our students have created an ancient jewellery-making workshop which they have already tried out in a school in central Coventry. Here (left) you can see Jemima showing how to make a ring to a young pupil. The session which the group are developing involves practical jewellery making with metal wire and other equipment for something memorable that the pupils can take home, as well as presenting information on ancient jewellery.

One up and running, the jewellery making workshop will be available to local schools.

Roman Coin Hoards

In July 2023, the WCN were awarded £3,000 by the Warwick Institute of Engagement to continue developing my project with Warwickshire Museum on its two Roman coin hoards. This year one of the public engagement groups (numismatists in the making) have taken up the challenge to create an online portal about the coins, working together with the Museum to create a public facing resource.

Roman City Life

Another group are creating resources for teachers of Classical Civilisation GCSE for the module Roman City Life, collecting all of the sources into one place and integrating unique photos of sites including the Colosseum taken by Professor Alison Cooley. They have been working in tandem with teachers to make these resources as useful as possible.

The resources are being hosted on our WCN teacher resource webpages, under the topic of Roman City Life.

Greek Theatre Workshop

A group of students who are fresh from our production of the Agamemnon are using costumes from the play to engage local schools in Greek Theatre, working with a local drama teacher at Barr’s Hill to create a unique experience for Coventry students.

Lessons-in-a-box

Another group are developing a lesson-in-a-box, practical archaeology workshop during which pupils can ‘excavate’ ancient artefacts (replicas and 3D prints of real artefacts from Lunt Roman Fort) from boxes of sand, thereby experiencing real discoveries, followed by creative exercises in deciding what the objects are and who they may have belonged to.

This session was trialled in March with a visiting school (left - a Roman coin unearthed by a budding archaeologist at our recent on campus session).

This will be a very popular session we can deliver and lend to schools, leading to more engagement with the Roman history on their own doorstep and with potential for future development.

Student blog: Winged Words

And a final group are setting up a blog for our students to talk about their various Classics enthusiasms as a way of engaging the wider community and especially school kids with the wonders of the ancient world, and the possibilities of studying this at University.