Young historians adopt a soldier for Green Howards Museum’s medal room project

The Green Howards Museum has invited students from Richmond School to become involved with their exciting project to refurbish their medal room.  The museum has over a thousand medals and the students have been asked to work with them on their fascinating collection of VC medals.  A number of schools have ‘adopted’ a soldier who received this prestigious award – the highest award for bravery that a British soldier can receive and then do some historical research using the artefacts and documents housed at the museum. The Green Howards Museum has invited students from Richmond School to become involved with their exciting project to refurbish their medal room.  The museum has over a thousand medals and the students have been asked to work with them on their fascinating collection of VC medals.  A number of schools have ‘adopted’ a soldier who received this prestigious award – the highest award for bravery that a British soldier can receive and then do some historical research using the artefacts and documents housed at the museum. A group of Year 9 students visited the museum with Mrs Mawer, the Lead Teacher of History, to find out more about the work of the museum and the medal room project.  They were treated to a fascinating tour of the museum by Carl Watts, the museum’s educational officer and were especially interested in the artefacts from the world wars, including part of Hitler’s desk from his bunker in Berlin.  They then found out more about the project and the VC recipient Tom Dresser they are going to be working on.  Students were really excited to be given original documents from which to do their research.  These included photos, newspaper reports and an interview with Tom.  They were also able to handle an original First World War gun which was similar to the one that Tom had. The students came away with lots of great ideas about how to present their findings on a large banner and were especially enthused with being ‘real’ historians for the morning and doing original research.  It was definitely a great opportunity for all those involved and we are all looking forward to see their finished work.