Historic Edinburgh Tours offer a variety of walks around
Edinburgh’s Old Town. We’re unable to offer Edinburgh
teachers set discounts on our scheduled tours, but if you
contact us about a tour when we’re already taking guests
out and around Edinburgh, we’ll happily try to fit you in and
offer you a discount.
Teachers are, of course, able to book any of our Edinburgh
tours and our private tours at normal adult rates.
Our Old Edinburgh walking tour would probably be the one
most likely to support teachers own professional
development about the general history of the Old Town. It
would be a great way to introduce the history of the Old
Town to teachers who are new to Edinburgh.
We also run a Residents’ Tour schedule which will include a
rare adult version of our Jacobites Occupation of Edinburgh
tour and our Victorian poverty tour. We will also be
running a few of our Greyfriars Kirkyard tours.
We can also run a version of our cheapest Edinburgh
private tour. If you wish to discuss any of these tours as a
special running just for your stage colleagues and yourself,
it’s certainly something we could look at doing for a
discounted rate. Your guide would be Robert, the same
person who leads al our include tours of Edinburgh.
Please contact us so that we can discuss your first level Old Edinburgh tour
requirements.
Email us at; robert@historicedinburghtours.co.uk
You can also call/text us on; 07590 026 077
Please contact us so that we can discuss your first level Old Edinburgh tour
requirements.
Email us at; robert@historicedinburghtours.co.uk
You can also call/text us on; 07590 026 077
FIRST LEVEL OLD
EDINBURGH TOUR
In a nutshell;
Welcome to Old Edinburgh?
This outdoor learning experience will immerse your class in the rich history of the Old Town of Edinburgh. We designed this ‘First Level’ tour of Edinburgh to be appropriate for younger classes. The historical evidence we will use is engaging for our first level pupils, and the stories we tell are more age-appropriate. Your guide will come equipped with an assortment of props and an A3 book of supporting images and other materials. We’ve worked hard to give your class a very ‘visual’ tour. The pupils will be doing individual and partner work using a variety of different sources of evidence. We will use old maps, ‘then and now’ images and much more to get your pupils in role as detectives as they explore the Old Town. Active learning, ‘on location’ is to the fore on this tour, there are no paper and pencils needed on this investigation of Old Edinburgh! Your guide, Robert, designed this Old Town tour. He’s a teacher himself and will use all of his 20+ year teaching experience to engage with your pupils.
“HOW LONG COULD PEOPLE LIVE
FOR IN ‘OLD EDINBURGH’?”
We love covering this on our tour! Towards the start of our tour, we will find out about a gravestone of family which give us a very clear idea about just how long it was possible to live for in the eighteenth century. We guarantee that your class will be surprised by this!
- £3 per pupil
- Monday-Wednesday availability
(possibly Thursdays also!)
- meets in Greyfriars Kirkyard
- tour lasts approximately 1 and half - 2
hours (at your discretion)
- pupils work indivdually and
with partners whilst using various
sources of evidence
- tour can be tailored to your times
and specific learning questions, just
let us know what you’d like us to
focus on.
“Our Crime and
Punishment tour on
Thursday night with
two P7 classes was
definitely one of the
best school trips I've
been on in my 22 year
teaching career”
L. Ross -
Class Teacher
“Fantastic & thoroughly
engaging trip for our P3/4s
on Monday. We learned so
much. Really well thought
out, lively and well
pitched. Your enthusiasm
and sense of humour were
contagious! I would
thoroughly recommend!”
J.Ross
First Level Old Town tour
A FEW LEARNING QUESTIONS ANSWERED ON YOUR
“WHO ARE THE MOST FAMOUS
‘OLD EDINBURGH’ PEOPLE?”
Our tour starts by looking at one of the most famous of all Edinburgh’s characters; the story of the faithful Skye Terrier, Greyfriars Bobby. This story is probably the most popular Edinburgh tale. But stories are not always full of facts. Robert will explain the different versions of the ‘legend’ of Greyfriars Bobby and let your class work out their own opinions.
“HOW HAS THE OLD TOWN
CHANGED OVER TIME?”
There are lots of chances for us to become ‘time travellers’ on this tour! We’ll stand in a couple of locations and use archive images to show us what these locations looked like hundreds of years ago. We can even use multiple images to reveal how one area looked at different points in history! Your pupils will visit Greyfriars Kirkyard, the Grassmarket, the Lawnmarket, Riddle’s Court, the High Street, Parliament Square (where we get a great view of St Giles) and a typical ‘Old Town’ close on your tour.
“HOW CAN WE USE EVIDENCE TO
FIND OUT ABOUT AN EVENT
FROM THE PAST?”
The picture shown on the left of this text box shows a view of the old West Bow street as it would have looked over two hundred years ago. You can see parts of this street today. Your class will get a chance to explore this area and compare this image with what they can see now. It’s a great opportunity to look at the fine details in archive images and see what resemblance if any, these archive images have with the evidence we can see today.
“WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO LIVE IN
AN OLD TOWN CLOSE?”
We’ll use props and ‘then and now’ pictures to let pupils imagine what it was like to live in one of the famous Old Edinburgh closes. Yes, we DO look at the whole ‘Gardyloo’ story…probably in a lot more detail than you’d expect… Twenty-years of teaching have given us a good idea about what your pupils will want to know!
EXPLORE THE OLD TOWN WITH OUR
AWARD-WINNING EDINBURGH TOURS
*
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
FOR THE CLASS TEACHER
ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION
Although pupils won’t be walking for the full hour and a half duration of this tour, there are limited places where we can offer rest areas. We’ve put together a page which will highlight some relevant accessibility issues which occur on this tour route. We can alter the tour if notified in advance and we can discuss some options for young people with mobility issues. Sadly, the Old Town is hilly and not brilliantly paved. All our tour routes cross at pedestrian crossings and any alternative solutions might include streets which don’t have proper crossing areas. We’ve put together an accessibility information sheet with some information for your risk assessment print-out. You can access these here.
WET WEATHER INFORMATION
This tour is an ‘outside’ tour, and there are no areas where we can shelter out of the rain. We do realise that a wet and windy day probably isn’t going make for positive memories! We’re pretty flexible and will happily reschedule your date. There’s no extra cost for this. We realise this is useful if you are travelling on foot or using public transport. If you have organised transport, then please know that, whatever the weather, we will be there for you! If you’d like to reschedule your tour, please let us know by 8.30 am on the morning of your tour. My mobile number is 07590 026 077.
RISK ASSESSMENT
Risk assessment is something which your governing body will legally need you to carry out and, as such, we can only offer some suggestions and recommendations for your paperwork. While we can’t offer these as your official risk assessment, please click here to download our suggested risk assessment information and our route instructions. We’ve put together an accessibility information sheet with some information for your risk assessment print-out. You can access these here. This document has a standard meeting point for this tour. You may have discussed a different location in correspondence with your guide. This would be your starting place.
TOILETS (AND ADDED VALUE!)
We’ve got no ‘toilet’ stops on our tour, but you are welcome to ask the Museum of Scotland if you can use theirs. Most of our schools' tours of Edinburgh start just across the road from there. You may also want to book a teacher-led guided tour/exploration of the Museum of Scotland. This is free. They also offer a series of paid workshops. Booking something either of these options will allow you to ask for the use of their lunchroom. We also recommend checking out the educational workshops at Riddle’s Court. These come with a cost. A lunchroom is sometimes available.
Please contact us so that we can discuss your first level Old Edinburgh tour
requirements
Email us at; robert@historicedinburghtours.co.uk
You can also call/text us on; 07590 026 077
“WHAT WERE SOME OF THE BIG
EVENTS IN EDINBURGH’S
HISTORY?”
We can look at the celebration which officially welcomed Mary, Queen of Scots on her return to Scotland. We will look at the story of Deacon Brodie, and we’ll visit the site of the prison where he spent his last days. We will also find out about the bodysnatchers and can mention the Irish murderers Burke and Hare - this is a choice available to you. We know that these characters often come up, even in first level projects. We can share stories which are as age-appropriate as possible. You’ll know what you’d like your classes to learn and we can incorporate when and where possible.
TEACHER DISCOUNTS ON OUR SCHEDULED
AWARD-WINNING EDINBURGH TOURS
*
Text/Call us :
+44 (0)7590 026 077
Copyright Historic Edinburgh Tours Ltd 2020
Registered in Scotland I SC 454482
28/2 Bridge Road, Edinburgh, EH13 0LQ
FIRST LEVEL OLD EDINBURGH TOUR
