Year 8 Summer Learning Year 8 Summer Learning

Wednesday 24th June Thursday 25th June Friday 26th June

Sense of Wonderful Welsh Weekend Trails Conference Challenge • Visit a site of cultural significance in • Spend the day at the Wyastone • Choose a local peak or trail to Wales Estate, just outside of walk • You choose where to visit •Work in form bases around the • Different degrees of difficulty • Linked to the ‘Wonderful Welsh estate as well as spending time in the • Challenge yourself! Weekend’ project stunning concert hall. • Celebrate after with food at • Information collected will be used the • Information from the previous day following day will be used during the day.

Discover Wales Gather Information Using Information Physical Challenge Celebrate Together Sense of Wales Wednesday 24th June

• You are going to have the opportunity to visit a site of cultural significance in Wales on the Wednesday of Summer Learning Week

• You will choose your preferred site to visit

• You will be expected to gather information and data from your visit to be used the following day during Summer Learning. National Museum

Cardiff (30 places)

www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/

Discover art, archaeology, natural history and geology. With a busy programme of exhibitions and events, the National Museum has something to amaze everyone, whatever your interest.

The art collection is one of Europe's finest. Five hundred years of magnificent paintings, drawings, sculpture, silver and ceramics from Wales and across the world, including one of Europe's best collections of Impressionist works.

Prepare for a 4,600 million-year voyage accompanied by meteorites, moon rock and fossils on a journey bringing you face to face with dinosaurs and woolly mammoths.

Discover the diverse natural history of Wales on an expedition from the seashore to the woodland and beyond.

Cardiff Bay (50 places)

www.wmc.org.uk

Wales Millennium Centre (Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru) is an arts centre located in the area.

It opened in 2004 and has already established its reputation as one of the world's iconic arts and cultural destinations. The vision of the Centre is to be an internationally significant cultural landmark and centre for the performing arts, renowned for inspiration, excellence and leadership.

Visitors come to enjoy blockbuster West End musicals, opera, ballet and contemporary dance, hip hop and stand up comedy, art exhibitions, workshops, training days, free daily foyer performances, guided tours, bars and restaurants.

During the guided tour you will have the opportunity to go to areas the public do not usually get to see, including backstage areas and dressing rooms.

Cardiff (50 places)

www.millenniumstadium.com

Since opening in June 1999, the Millennium Stadium has welcomed, on average, over 1.3 million visitors per year. Sporting the first fully-retractable roof in the UK, the venue is at the leading edge as a multi-purpose, multi-faceted event venue.

The Millennium Stadium boasts a UEFA 5-Star rating and has hosted matches from two Rugby World Cups including the Final in 1999, witnessed three Wales Grand Slam successes in the RBS Six Nations, staged six showpiece FA Cup Finals plus hosted the major artists of the music business with a plethora of major concerts and motorsports events.

You will join one of their experienced tour guides and visit the Press Conference Suite where the worlds of rugby and journalism meet. Experience the build up before the match in the Dragon's Lair, Wales' team dressing room. Hear the roar of 74,500 fans as you walk down the players' tunnel towards the hallowed turf. National Assembly for Wales and Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Bay (25 places)

www.assemblywales.org

The National Assembly for Wales is the democratically elected body that represents the interests of Wales and its people, makes laws for Wales, and holds the to account.

The main building, the Senedd, was opened in 2006, and is where Assembly Members gather for Plenary. The Assembly estate also includes the Pierhead, an historical building in Cardiff Bay.

It is an open building – a building into which you can walk, have a cup of coffee in the Oriel on the upper level, and go into the public galleries from the Neuadd on the centre level.

You will also have the opportunity to explore some of the surrounding Cardiff Bay area during the visit. St Fagans

Cardiff (40 places)

www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/stfagans

St Fagans is one of Europe's leading open-air museums and Wales's most popular heritage attraction. It stands in the grounds of the magnificent St Fagans Castle.

St Fagans has over 40 amazing re-erected historical buildings to explore – including a Celtic Village, a grand medieval church and a Victorian school.

There will be an opportunity for guided tours around some of these buildings as well as chance to independently explore the site.

Demonstrations include traditional skills by on site millers, saddlers, blacksmiths, weavers and clog makers.

St Fagans also has some of the finest gardens in Wales which you will have chance to visit. Big Pit: National Coal Museum

Blaenavon (50 places)

www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/bigpit

Big Pit is a real coal mine and one of Britain's leading mining museums.

With facilities to educate and entertain all ages, Big Pit is an exciting and informative day out. Enjoy a multi-media tour of a modern coal mine with a virtual miner in the Mining Galleries, exhibitions in the Pithead Baths and Historic colliery buildings open to the public for the first time.

All this AND the world-famous Underground Tour. Go 300 feet underground with a real miner and see what life was like for the thousands of men who worked at the coal face. & Castell Coch

Caerphilly and (40 places)

www..wales.gov.uk

Visit two contrasting historical in the Caerphilly area of South East Wales.

Caerphilly Castle sprawls over a huge area making it the largest castle in Wales. This stone behemoth, surrounded by a series of and watery islands was the brainchild of Gilbert ‘the Red’ de Clare, a redheaded nobleman of Norman descent. He also built the original Castell Coch, ‘Red Castle’, located the other side of Caerphilly mountain.

By contrast Castell Coch (Red Castle) is relatively modern, the by-product of a vivid Victorian imagination, assisted by untold wealth. Celtic Manor Resort & Cardiff Bay Visit

Newport & Cardiff (18 places)

www.celtic-manor.com

The Celtic Manor Resort is a hotel and leisure resort in Newport, . It consists of two adjoining hotels, a country inn, two golf and country clubs, and a multi- purpose conference centre.

In 2010 it was the venue for Golf’s most prestigious event, the Ryder Cup, the first to be held in Wales. In 2014 the world’s leaders visited the Celtic Manor as part of the NATO Conference.

Explore the hotel with opportunities to visit areas such as rooms, kitchens, conference centres and the golf courses. You will also be able to experience what goes on behind the scenes in Wales’ most famous hotel. This will be followed by a visit to Cardiff Bay to visit to walk around the Bay and see some of the main attractions in the area. National Roman Legion Museum

Caerleon (20 places)

www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/roman

Step back in time at the National Roman Legion Museum and explore life in a far-flung outpost of the mighty Roman Empire.

Wales was the furthest outpost of the Roman Empire. In AD 75, the Romans built a fortress at Caerleon that would guard the region for over 200 years.

Today at Caerleon you can learn what made the Romans a formidable force and how life wouldn't be the same without them. You'll be able to see exhibitions and artefacts that show us how they lived, fought, worshipped and died. Exhibition

Cardiff Bay (25 places)

www.doctorwho.tv/events/doctor-who- experience

Visit the Doctor Who Exhibition in Cardiff Bay and experience one of TV’s biggest shows filmed here in Wales!

Housed in a specially constructed facility in Cardiff's Porth Teigr - a stone's throw from the BBC studios where Doctor Who is filmed - the Doctor Who Experience offers a unique, exciting and sometimes scary journey into fifty years of adventures in space and time

Follow the Doctor on a spectacular, interactive adventure through time and space. Beginning in the Gallifrey Museum and journeying to the heart of the TARDIS, visitors will have to grapple with a threat which could destroy the universe...

Explore how the BBC use some of Cardiff Bay’s locations for filming and how this has led to one of the biggest tourist attractions in Wales. Year 8 Wonderful Welsh Weekend Conference Thursday th Year 8 will spend the day at the Wyastone Estate, just outside 25 June of Monmouth, as part of the conference on their Wonderful Welsh Weekend projects.

The conference will be created and organised by Year 8 and will involve interactive presentations, workshops and visual displays.

Each form will have their own form base around the estate to work in, as well as spending time in the stunning concert hall.

Information from the previous day’s Sense of Wales visits will be used during the day. Packed lunches will need to be brought. Monmouthshire Trails Challenge

Friday 26th June

• Have a look at the following information on three local walks

• You are going to choose one walk to complete on the Friday of Summer Learning Week

• Remember to challenge yourself, but remember that the walks vary in degrees of difficulty

• You may wish to draw upon any previous experiences you have of these peaks, or carry out your own research into the peaks

• We will all meet together after the challenge to celebrate and have food at Skenfrith Castle The ‘Swan Walk’

Skenfrith Distance: 6 miles Height: 134m

• Medium degree of difficulty • Skills required: Orienteering, Problem Solving, Working with Others, Working independently, Meeting deadlines.

6 miles with two climbs (330ft and 440ft) and much of it is marked by a chained swan sign, the badge of Mary de Bohun, mother of Henry V who was born at . Includes visit to Skenfrith Castle to eat packed lunch and other activities. Ysgyryd Fawr

Abergavenny Distance: 4 miles Height: 486m • Medium to High degree of difficulty

• Skills required: Orienteering, Problem Solving, Working with Others, Working independently, Meeting deadlines, Fitness related skills.

Ysgyryd Fawr is the most easterly of the Black Mountains in Wales, part of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The name is often anglicised to The Skirrid or Skirrid Fawr, and the mountain is also known as Holy Mountain or Sacred Hill. To walk this challenge you must have appropriate trainers or walking shoes. Hatterrall Ridge

Pandy Distance: 6 miles Height: 464m • High degree of difficulty

• Skills required: Map Reading, Orienteering, Problem Solving, Working with Others, Working independently, Meeting deadlines, Fitness related skills.

The Hatterrall Ridge is a ridge in the Black Mountains forming the border between Powys and Monmouthshire in Wales and Herefordshire in England. The ridge is about 10 miles long, and is followed by the Offa's Dyke Path. The destination of this part of the walk is the Trig Point at 464m. To walk this challenge you must have appropriate trainers or walking shoes.