{"id":1605,"date":"2026-06-26T09:25:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:25:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:25:22","slug":"my-share-with-schools-experience-volunteer-blog-post-ahsan-rashid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/my-share-with-schools-experience-volunteer-blog-post-ahsan-rashid\/","title":{"rendered":"My SHARE with Schools Experience: Volunteer Blog Post &#8211; Ahsan Rashid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My three placements with Share with Schools were incredible experiences that solidified my<br \/>\ndesire to go into teaching. Creating clay Mesopotamian cylinder seals with Year 6 and Year 7<br \/>\nstudents during their primary school graduation events and Fitzalan\u2019s return visit,<br \/>\nrespectively, taught me the value of activity-based education.<br \/>\nThe children and young teenagers respond incredibly well to creative and play-based<br \/>\nlearning. Some Year 6 students inquired further about the cylinder seals as they made their<br \/>\nown, creating opportunities for brief history lessons. Many of them took direct inspiration<br \/>\nfrom the examples and replicas we had on hand; I believe many future archaeologists were<br \/>\nborn that day. Similarly, when playing a home-brewed tabletop game focused on medieval<br \/>\npeasant life with the Year 7 students, they seemed far more immersed in the<br \/>\nexperience\u2014albeit satirised and made age-appropriate\u2014than I remember being at their age,<br \/>\nsitting and listening to a presentation.<br \/>\nIt was also humbling to witness the creativity and artistic ability of the Year 6 students, who<br \/>\nused the clay to create shapes that had not even occurred to me or my fellow volunteer,<br \/>\nwhile we struggled to carve simple patterns into a flat piece of clay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My three placements with Share with Schools were incredible experiences that solidified my desire to go into teaching. Creating clay Mesopotamian cylinder seals with Year 6 and Year 7 students [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":8591,"featured_media":1606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,173,5,174,175,6,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-return-visit","category-schools","category-student-blog","category-volunteer-blog","category-volunteers","category-workshop"],"meta_box":{"featured_image":"","lead_text":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1608,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions\/1608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/share-with-schools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}