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Learning

School visits

Topics and themes

Topics and themes

This list offers a guide to Trust places that support teaching and learning on popular themes. In addition, most of our sites also support cross-curricular activities including art, drama and music, which may be built into your visit.

History

A group of people stand around an illuminated table with a map of the battle of Bannockburn. The walls behind them are lit by red and orange panels.

The Wars of Independence

The Battle of Bannockburn

Tree branches in front of the tall stone Alloa Tower

Tower houses

Alloa Tower
Castle Fraser
Crathes Castle
Drum Castle

The East Range ruins stand in the Falkland Palace gardens, casting long shadows across the lawn.

Mary, Queen of Scots/The Stuarts/Scotland in the 1500s

Alloa Tower
Falkland Palace

A narrow street runs uphill between 17th-century town houses. Most are two-storey and painted white or yellow. Some have pantiled roofs. A set of external stone steps leads up to a door of the house in the foreground.

Merchants/Burghs/Scotland in the 1600s

Royal Burgh of Culross

Men dressed as Jacobite soldiers run across a battlefield, holding shields and swords.

The Jacobites

Alloa Tower (1715)
Culloden (1745/6)
Glencoe (1692)
Killiecrankie (1689)
Kintail (Battle of Glen Shiel 1719)

Looking up at the grand front exterior of The Georgian House on a sunny day. The photo is almost taken from pavement level and shows the stone steps leading up to the black front door.

The Georgians

Culzean Castle & Country Park
The Georgian House
Newhailes House & Gardens
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

Looking through a series of doorways in a Victorian villa. The walls are decorated in red and orange paint, with stencilled decoration running as a frieze.

The Victorians

J M Barrie’s Birthplace
Brodick Castle, Garden & Country Park
Brodie Castle
Culzean Castle & Country Park
Haddo House
Holmwood
Robert Smail’s Printing Works
Thomas Carlyle’s Birthplace
Weaver’s Cottage

The white walls of Hill of Tarvit Mansion can be seen looking up from the garden past elegantly shaped yew hedges. Tall purple flowers grow beside a stone wall in the foreground.

Early 20th century

Broughton House
The Hill House
Moirlanich Longhouse
The Tenement House

A display of weapons is mounted on a wall, with a military drum shown in the foreground. The display is made up of many swords, mounted in a circle to give a wheel effect.

World War II

National Museum of Rural Life (managed by National Museums Scotland)
Culzean Castle & Country Park
Haddo House

Famous Scots

Inside the kitchen at Burns Cottage, with a traditional range at the fire and a spinning wheel to the side.

J M Barrie’s Birthplace
Broughton House (home of painter Edward Atkinson Hornel)
Thomas Carlyle’s Birthplace
Falkland Palace (Mary, Queen of Scots)
Hugh Miller’s Birthplace
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

Expressive arts

Exterior view of the Hill House from the garden on a sunny day

Architecture

Alloa Tower (tower house)
Castle Fraser (tower house)
Crathes Castle (tower house)
Culzean Castle & Country Park (Robert Adam)
Drum Castle (tower house)
Haddo House (William Adam)
The Hill House (Charles Rennie Mackintosh)
Holmwood (Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson)
Newhailes House (Enlightenment)
The Tenement House (tenement living)

E A Hornel's artwork on display in Broughton House Studio

Art and design

Broughton House (Glasgow Boys; Hornel)
The Georgian House (portrait collection)
The Hill House (Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh; Charles Rennie Mackintosh)

A fragment of a manuscript for Burns’s ’Auld Lang Syne’, written in his handwriting. The bottom right corner has been torn.

Languages

Culloden (Gaelic)
J M Barrie’s Birthplace (English)
Moirlanich Longhouse (Gaelic songs and storytelling)
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum (Scots)

Science – Planet Earth – Biodiversity & Interdependence

(these visits are led by Trust rangers)

A view of the mountains from the Glencoe Visitor Centre viewing platform

Conservation

Balmacara Estate
Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve
Ben Lomond
Brodick Country Park
Castle Fraser
Crathes Castle Estate
Culzean Country Park
Drum Castle Estate
Glencoe National Nature Reserve
Haddo Country Park
Killiecrankie
Kintail
Leith Hall Estate
Mar Lodge Estate National Nature Reserve
Newhailes Estate
Rockcliffe
Threave Estate

A pipistrelle bat rests on a brick surface, its wings tucked into its furry body.

Food chains/minibeasts

Brodick Country Park
Castle Fraser
Crathes Castle Estate
Culzean Country Park
Drum Castle Estate
Greenbank Garden
Haddo Country Park
Leith Hall Estate
Newhailes Estate
Threave Estate (including bats)

A sunny yet cloudy view from the top of Goatfell

Mountains

Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve
Ben Lomond
Glencoe National Nature Reserve
Goatfell (Brodick Country Park)
Kintail
Mar Lodge Estate National Nature Reserve

Two women walking along a beach with the tide out, with a small black dog walking behind them.

Seashore

Brodick Country Park
Culzean Country Park
Rockcliffe

Purple rhododendron flowers grow next to a pretty wooden bridge in Crarae Garden

Gardens (teacher-led visits encouraged but Trust staff can be available)

Brodick Castle Garden
Crarae Garden
Culzean Castle Garden
Falkland Palace Garden
Greenbank Garden
Harmony Garden
Inverewe
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Priorwood Garden
Threave Garden

An ammonite is displayed on a blue surface in the geology exhibition.

Geology and earth materials

Brodick Country Park
Culzean Country Park
Hugh Miller’s Birthplace

Technology

Farm machinery on display in the Museum of Farming Life. Pictured is a blue plough with a large red-spoked wheel.

Farming

National Museum of Rural Life (managed by National Museums Scotland)
Pitmedden Garden (Museum of Farming Life)

A close-up view of the Wharfedale reliance printing press, showing a large poster rolled around a wheel.

Technological developments in society

Barry Mill
Preston Mill
Robert Smail’s Printing Works
Weaver’s Cottage