Teachers
Make the most of our Bannockburn Learning pages, with hints on how to get the best from the Battlepedia and Quizzes. You’ll also find visit information and ideas for how to use a visit to tie in with popular teaching themes.
Planning your visit
The Experience
The Battle of Bannockburn Experience is a thrilling interpretation of the characters and events of the battle.
Stand shoulder-to-shoulder with medieval warriors and armoured knights while learning about the tactics of two opposing kings in a truly immersive experience.
Witness the sights and sounds of medieval battle first-hand including ancient battle strategies, weapons and armour.
Workshop
To complement your visit to the Experience, we can also offer your class a workshop. Pupils will have the opportunity to handle replica armour and weapons and learn about the types of soldier that would have been present at the battle.
We also offer an outdoor tour, during which pupils will visit the site where Robert Bruce trained his army.
School visits are suitable for stages P4 to S6 and can be adapted to suit your pupils’ existing knowledge and relevant topic of study. We can also offer provision for learners in further education.
Visit information
Full day (workshop, Experience and outdoor tour; available Tuesday–Thursday)
£5 per pupil
Time: 10am arrival and 2pm departure
Number of pupils: max. 66
Half day (Experience; available Monday and Friday)
£3.50 per pupil
Time: 11am–12 noon or 12–1pm
Number of pupils: max. 66
Bookings
In order to book, please email learningatbannockburn@nts.org.uk
Facilities
- Dedicated education room
- Replica armour and weapons
- Fully accessible site
Risk assessment
The Learning staff will prepare their own risk assessments for the activities they lead. All staff are Disclosure checked and have been through National Trust for Scotland in-house training courses.
A Battle of Bannockburn staff member will establish themself as the person in charge of the session, but the class teacher will have responsibility for discipline throughout the visit.
Weapons and object handling will adhere to the National Trust for Scotland’s own guidelines.
Ensure your pupils have waterproof jackets for the visit to the monuments.
Paving slabs may be slippery when wet.
Please stay with your group at all times and be aware of where your pupils are.
The National Trust for Scotland asks that you bring one adult for every eight children and that there should always be two adults present with your group.
Within the Experience the lighting level is low. Teachers are asked to ensure pupils do not run while in the space.
Within the Battle Room there are metal railings; pupils must be discouraged from climbing, swinging or otherwise playing on the bars.
For up-to-date coronavirus rules, please see the Scottish Government website.
We recommend that, wherever possible, group leaders make a preparatory visit to the property free of charge to familiarise themselves with the site and identify any potential dangers as well as to help plan the visit. Familiarisation visits for teachers can be booked through the centre by emailing learningatbannockburn@nts.org.uk or call 01786 812664.
Educational resources
The expertise of our academic panel ensures we have some of the best research regarding the battle, the people who fought it, the weapons and armour, and the locations involved. Using that knowledge, we have created our Battle encyclopedia which has been designed to be used in the classroom. The imagery has been created by the same team who made our immersive Experience.
For further reading we could also recommend:
Teaching themes
Visiting the Battle of Bannockburn and our Battlepedia site is an excellent way to support the teaching of a number of different classroom topics.
Please contact the Learning Team on site if you wish to discuss your own topic or how we could tailor a visit to fit your needs.
Knights and castles
Explore the world of medieval knights through the characters who played their parts at Bannockburn. From famous knights like James Douglas to a humble page, the Bannockburn Experience will bring these characters to life.
And, of course, at the centre of it all was Scotland’s most significant stronghold – Stirling Castle. Find out why it was known as the ‘brooch that held Scotland together’ and fight your own battle to see who ends up in control of it!
Wallace, Bruce and the Wars of Independence
The Battle of Bannockburn, of course, was the key turning point in Scotland’s long struggle to preserve its independence from the clutches of successive English kings.
The Battle of Bannockburn tells you the story – from the death of Edward I to Scotland finally being recognised as an independent nation.
And in the meantime you’ll be dropped into the midst of the battle itself! Will you and your soldiers survive to tell the tale?
Medieval life in Scotland
The Battle of Bannockburn Experience can allow your class to explore medieval life from a very different perspective.
Hear about the lives of medieval characters from all walks of life – from high ranking knights to lowly peasants. Let them tell you their stories from the time of Bannockburn and bring medieval Scotland to life.
You can also get hands-on with history in our facilitated workshops that allow pupils to explore medieval life through objects and source materials.
More from the Battlepedia
Discover more about aspects of medieval life with our Battlepedia. Explore the people and places that made the Battle of Bannockburn a key event in Scotland’s medieval history.
Scotland
If your class is covering a broader ‘Scotland’ theme, the Battle of Bannockburn stands out as one of the iconic moments in our past. We’d be happy to look at ways of exploring this theme with you and supporting the topic in different ways through our workshops on site.
Using the Battlepedia
What is the Battlepedia?
Our Battlepedia site is designed to be used by teachers and pupils alike to give you access to our unique archive of expert research and digital images.
The new Battle of Bannockburn Experience is the result of years of painstaking historical research, supported by a team of academic experts. This has been coupled with the development of cutting-edge digital technology to bring you a fully immersive learning experience at the visitor centre.
Using this expert research, and a huge bank of exclusively developed digital resources, the Battlepedia will support classroom learning by giving you access to a unique new learning and teaching resource.
Get the most out of the Battlepedia
The Battlepedia is very simple to use for anyone who has accessed other online encyclopedia sites.
Simply click into the Battlepedia site and you will be invited to select from Characters, Weaponry or Locations related to the Battle of Bannockburn. This will launch you into the world of Bannockburn – its people, its places and its weapons of warfare.
The individual entries on the Battlepedia site are designed to provide an open-ended and flexible resource to support classroom learning. They can be used as a research tool for teachers, or to support pupils with classroom work and research projects.
The digital images and videos are also designed to be user-friendly and uploaded for anything that suits the needs of your class, for example, for use on whiteboards, worksheets, posters or as part of pupil projects and presentations.
Our interactive quizzes also provide a quick assessment tool to test your pupils’ knowledge of what they have discovered in the Battlepedia.
Let pupils have a go themselves and earn their own Battlepedia certificates, or use them as part of an end-of-project classroom team quiz.
Post-visit activities
A visit to the Battle of Bannockburn Experience can inspire a whole range of creative and thought-provoking responses from your pupils.
Creative responses
There are a variety of different ways in which a visit to Bannockburn could inspire creative responses from your class.
Why not try one of the following:
Art and design
Medieval armies would actually have created a colourful sight. Heraldry played an important role on the battlefield in identifying individual knights and displaying rank and status.
Why not get your class to create their own coats of arms to represent themselves, and produce a colourful wall display?
Use the Characters section of our Battlepedia site for inspiration, where you can see detailed images of individual knights and their own coats of arms.
Drama
Use some of the stories around Bannockburn to create imaginary role-play scenarios in the classroom. For example:
- The meeting between Bruce and Comyn at Greyfriars Church.
- Alexander Seton’s defection to Bruce’s side on the night before the battle
- English soldiers waking up on the Carse on the morning of the battle
See if you can get your pupils to come up with other ideas for role-play scenarios. They could use the Characters section of the Battlepedia to find out more about individual characters and the stories behind them.
Creative writing
The Battle of Bannockburn has inspired writers over the centuries, from John Barbour’s epic poem ‘The Brus’ to The Corries’ ‘Flower of Scotland’ right up to the present day and Kathleen Jamie’s new inscription at the rotunda monument.
After a visit to Bannockburn, your class could be inspired by the events, the experience and the landscape to create their own written responses. Why not use it as an opportunity to encourage your class to write a poem, story or script in Scots?
For shorter responses, pupils also have the option of sending a postcard to tell people about their Bannockburn experiences.
Social studies research projects
Our Battlepedia provides an excellent springboard for pupils to do their own group or individual research project on the battle. The Battlepedia allows pupils to explore various different aspects of the battle – the characters, weaponry, armour and locations.
Their research projects could be represented through displays, presentations or booklets, using the downloadable images contained in our extensive Battlepedia site.
Conflict of choice
Teacher’s guidance
The Battle of Bannockburn ‘Conflict of Choice’ package consists of a PowerPoint presentation designed to stimulate conversations about the various reasons people have for fighting in battle.
The PowerPoint presents a variety of medieval characters from different walks of life. At the start of each character’s section, there will be an introduction as to who they are and their life at the time of Bannockburn.
The slides will then progress to ask questions. Pupils might be given a choice between two options, for example do you fight or not? Or they might be questioned about an individual’s motivation behind a decision – for example why does a squire want to fight in a battle?
Once you have discussed answers with the class, you can progress to the next stage. Pupils will be presented with an argument for each case, or some possible motivations that the character might have. These, of course, are not exhaustive and your class may well find the answers they come up with are different.
There are various ways that you can continue the discussions raised, perhaps by looking at the reasons people fight in wars today and how these reasons compare to those in medieval times, or by using various creative responses to imagine what would happen to the characters after the battle.
The first character presented is that of Sir James Douglas, a real and very important knight. Pupils can use our online Battlepedia to research what choices he made and how his life turned out.