Welcome To Visitors From The Past!
Special educational days provided by Paul Mackintosh to schools (and others) in Yorkshire and nearby
Motivational, vivid and real! Through these costumed, historical characters I present exciting, interactive and creative ways to learn history and practise all sorts of KS 1 and 2 literacy skills - from speaking and listening to reading and writing, with a large dose of imagination thrown in. At KS3 I tell stories, decribe events, demonstrate my possessions and hold question and answer sessions ('hot seating') to shed light on all sorts of aspects of social, religious and political History. For older audiences I offer the chance to have a conversation with a character from the past, to hear his stories, beliefs and attitudes, as well as learn a lot of history.
I am a qualified teacher (GTC registered and a member of the NUT) and am insured for third party liability (with Simply Business/Glemham). I am a very experienced reenactor (with Seventeenth Century Life and Times, among others) and have been employed to present character talks not only to schools but to a wide variety of audiences in many locations.
About my visits
My characters range in time from an Elizabethan seafarer (Tudors/literacy), through several seventeenth century manifestations (history/literacy) to an early eighteenth century pirate (literacy). The different characters work in a variety of cross-curricular ways, some focusing on storytelling and demonstration, some on written literacy work, some on roleplayed, imagined adventures, but all "in role" See here for information on each character.
I adopt a flexible approach, endeavouring to liaise with the teachers involved in advance so that I can modify my sessions according to a variety of factors such as existing knowledge; ability level; school resources; groupings; timings; etc. I strive to interact with as many individual children as possible in each group and to ensure that all of them have the best possible experience. My language is old fashioned enough to draw children in and convince them, but carefully considered in terms of their understanding, and honed over the last 8 years of working with primary aged pupils. I explain any words crucial to their comprehension of the stories and literacy exercises, but find that many of the archaic words I employ come out in context so the children often understand them anyway.
As well as being costumed I bring a variety of artefacts and possessions for demonstration purposes, Q and A, as well as for supervised and careful handling by the children.
Visits to schools all over Yorkshire (and nearby)
