Northern Saints and Holy Island trip

We had an amazing time on our trip to Holy Island where Chris Hudson used drama, story-telling, props, touring the Island, pictures and books as well as music to introduce the Northern Saints and the Lindisfarne Gospels.  We began with Chris explaining about invaders and settlers starting with the Romans, the 'Dark Ages', leading to finding out about the Northern Saints.  

The children thoroughly enjoyed re-enacting the events of the four refugee Saxon children (Oswald and his siblings) who fled to Iona and their return after learning how to fight and also, very importantly, learning to read and write from the monks.  The children brilliantly re-created the Battle of Heavenfield in slow motion to music.  We celebrated Oswald's victory after some excellent sword fighting (and some dramatic dying) by these young actors.

We then did a walking tour of the Island with Chris to find out more about the connection to Iona and St Aidan’s life and work in Northumbria.  We also found out more about St Cuthbert and his life and his love of animals.  When we got back to school, we made links to the Lindisfarne Gospels and what an amazing piece of work they are.

It was a great day with so much covered in an entertaining and memorable way!  Huge thanks to Chris for making the day so exciting as well as informative.  We all agree that it was a fantastic experience.
 
The day was so good we managed to create two videos out of our experiences - one about the story of St Oswald and another more general one about the Northern Saints and Holy Island.  See below for lots of photos also.