On Friday we were very pleased to welcome Sheila Kohring back to school to look at our 'Big Dig' finds from the Autumn. Sheila had sorted through our bags of finds to search out the artefacts that would tell us more about what was happening in Exton in the past.

Sheila talked to us about how we work out what things are. She looked at the importance of asking questions. We started by looking at whether things are natural or made by humans, and sorted rocks, soil, plants and bone from plastic, glass metal and pottery. There was also a debate about whether things can be both natural and made by humans, which allowed us to talk about the flints that were found. Many things are natural, then shaped by humans so that we can use them.

We found quite a lot of porcelains, pottery and terracotta, which tells us that there were people on the land that the school is built on. This may well have been farm workers, or other local people. There were also some shaped pieces of flint. There was much debate about a marble, which was found well under the surface, so could not belong to a child currently in the school, and must have been there for some time.

Sheila tells us that there was evidence of Roman settlements found under what is now Campden Close, so it is not entirely impossible that some of our terracotta is from Roman times!

A huge thank you to Sheila for sifting through the many 'treasures' that we found (alas, the 'dinosaur egg' found by one of our EYFS children turned out to be a stone!) and for returning to talk to us again. Our 'Big Dig' has certainly bought history to life and shown what archaeology can teach us about the past.