Introducing our newest YAC: York!
August 2026
We’re delighted to introduce the newest YAC to join the YAC network: York YAC! Branch leader Sarah tells us about their vision for the new club and what they’ve been up to in their pilot sessions this summer, preparing for their launch in September.
Hello YAC family!
YAC York has now finally been set up through the hard work of Sarah, Fiona, Sharon and Lauren who are (mostly) based in York.
It has been months in planning to get this set up, with the help of YAC HQ, and we are now based in the 2nd St Thomas’s Scout Hut. YAC helps to bring archaeology to as many young children as possible, Scouts also help children develop skills which can prepare them in later years. So fingers crossed we can share resources and ideas with each other!
Our first sessions may have been small, but they have given us the time to really hone in and really work out what we want to do and teach. So we have been looking at teaching new members how to dig (no jabbing here!), learning about stratigraphy and how to identify different animal bones and pottery, which we are planning to take further.
Here in York, many people take for granted the vast amount of history which is underneath our feet! Drawing on our experiences as teachers, working with children and being a part of education teams within York’s museums, we genuinely feel that there is more we can do to help bring this city’s history to life. Our plans are to further help teach children how historic periods have changed the city and its people, and we are starting this off though looking at households through the ages, starting with the Victorians and ending with Prehistory, where we hope we can take our
members to the YEAR centre which is a part of the University of York. We have our fingers crossed for this one!
We are also planning to do a huge amount of experimental archaeology, which experimental archaeologist Fiona is especially excited for. We will be taking a closer look at what we can find in the soil, which will help us move away from looking at bones, CBM and pottery as exciting as they can be. Instead it will be the flora and fauna of the past and what we can learn from it. As you can see lots of ideas, more to work towards, and we are super excited to be doing this!
So thanks to CBA for helping us get to this amazing point.
Our sessions run once a month and our official launch will be Saturday the 12th September! Click here to find out more about York YAC and how to join!