A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time. (2014 National Curriculum)

We are very lucky to have Stansted Mountfitchet Castle and Toy Museum so close by. Year 1 had a school trip to the castle and museum in October 2021. The class History topic was Changes in Toys so this was a great way to see many of the different artifacts we had been learning about. The visit to the castle was also a great help when we started our Spring Term History topic of Changes in Houses and Homes.

Year 5 visited Layer Marney Tower, a Tudor house in Essex, last week as part of their history topic exploring the role of the Tudor monarchs in shaping British history, as well as understanding the lives of ordinary people in Tudor England. They discovered that a knight needed many skills such as how to cope with lots of heavy armour, including this fancy headgear, shoot with a bow and arrow, write their name and keep their teeth clean with a sage leaf!

Year 3's Roman Day April 2022

Aidan tells us, “On Wednesday, we made a moon and a bow and arrow out of clay.”

Molly says, “We may shields out of cardboard and wood and some were made waterproof.”

Alyson remembers, “We made a horse out of clay.” Evie’s group made an octopus out of clay. Georgia says, “In our group, we made a time machine and a pot, a sunflower and a sun because that relates to the powers our God has that we were thinking about.” Flora clarifies that the clay sculptures represented offerings to the Gods.

Cassia reports, “We made sculptures and we did the Tortoise formation with our shields.”

Daniel B remembers, “Adam shot us with water- YAY! (Two of us got wet)”.

Kye recalls, “We made sculptures out of clay and also we played with our shields and got shot with a water gun to show how secure our formation was.”

Darcy says, “I really enjoyed our Roman Day- it was super fun!”

Liberty reminds us, “We all came in wearing Roman costumes if we wanted to. We did some Roman colouring in when we arrived in the morning. My favourite part was when we used the shields to do the Tortoise formation. In the middle of the day, my group made a bow and arrow with extra arrows and two pots.”

Austin says, “We did the Testudo Formation with our shields and we decorated our shields in advance of the day. Our Expert was collecting Roman coins. Each coin had an emperor’s face on it. We made a poster of Roman Gods and Goddesses in the afternoon.”

Year 2 built their own buildings to experiment and see how the Fire of London took hold so quickly!

History learning is often taken outside with visits to places of interest. Year 4 went to West Stow Anglo-Saxon village to see how experimental archaeology has enabled historians to interpret their findings and understand the lives of our ancestors.