Enquiry

UKS2 kickstarted their topic all about Ancient Greece by exploring a wider range of sources of evidence and reflecting on what claims we could make about the Ancient Greeks using clues from the sources.  We made some super hypotheses. 

LKS2 have been developing their enquiry skills.  They explored some clues and sources of evidence to try and find out more about the Sutton Hoo Mystery.  They came up with some very interesting and insightful claims!

Line of Enquiry- Why did Britain have to go to war in 1939?

If WW1 had been such a devastating war, why then did Britain go to war again just twenty years after

  the First World War had ended?  What reasons might there have been?

We began our lesson thinking about this 'Digging Deeper' question.  We then learned about the policy of appeasement which Chamberlain and the British government adopted to deal with Hitler at first.  We worked in groups to sort statements into reasons for and against using appeasement.  Some of us had some very strong opinions about whether appeasement was a good policy to use.  

Line of Enquiry- Why is it so difficult to be sure what life on the Home Front was really like?

UKS2 learned about censorship and how the government censored certain information/pictures/posters to ensure that morale at home was kept high during the war.  We became government censors and had to decide which propaganda poster should be published and which should be censored.

Digging deeper

After exploring difference sources about Boudicca, we reflected on how some of these sources might show bias, depending on if they were created by a Celt or a Roman.  

Line of enquiry- Why did the Romans invade Britain?

We worked in pairs to look closely at different sources connected to our line of enquiry of why the Romans wanted to invade Britain.  We came up with some super hypotheses.   We then completed a diamond ranking of what we considered the most valid reason for invading might be.  

Line of Enquiry- 'Why do you think different interpretations of Boudicca exist?'

This was the question we had to consider when we found out all about Boudicca.  First of all, we looked at a statue of her and decided what clues there were from the statue that could tell us a bit more about her.  We then read a primary source of Boudicca which Cassius Dio (a Roman writer) had written about her around one hundred years after her reign.   We had to draw our own interpretations of what we thought she would look like from this description.  We then looked at different paintings and pictures of Boudicca and this led us to discuss why there are so many different interpretations of her.  We thought about how there might be bias about Boudicca depending on who you asked.....the Celts or the Romans!

In UKS2, we begun our new History topic by being given a mosaic to piece back together, which would give us clues as to which period of History we were going to be exploring.  We used the clues in the source to work out that it was the Romans.  We then became History detectives to complete our enquiry maps about what we could infer from the source of evidence.  We had some super hypotheses:

"I think the man with the red coming out his helmet is in charge because his uniform looks grander than the others"

"Perhaps they are about to fight an enemy and try and conquer their land"

"It is possibly Britain they are trying to invade because they would have had to travel by boat across the water from Italy"

"I know the Romans had a big empire, so maybe this was what they did to make it so big"

We have been busy becoming questioning historians in our History lessons.  We worked in groups to follow the enquiry process and used our skills to explore evidence found by archaeologists and then built our own hypotheses about what the evidence might tell us.  We were given different sources and clues about the mystery of twelve huge mounds.  Some of us thought the mounds might be covering ancient Anglo-Saxon shelters.  We then examined some more clues and discovered that they were actually Anglo-Saxon burial mounds.  The largest mound contained the imprint of a boat which contained lots of Anglo-Saxon treasures.  Some of our hypotheses included:

• “The mounds might have been where they worshipped their Gods, before they converted to Christianity.”
• “I think it looks like the shape of a wooden long boat like they used.”
• “It must have been someone rich with all those treasures.”
• “It might have been an Anglo-Saxon chief who needs the treasures with him.”
• “It’s like the Egyptians- they buried their dead with treasures too!”

We were given different sources of evidence which were connected to our new History topic.  Using the sources we had to dig deep and try to build historically valid hypotheses about which period of History it was and what clues the source contained.  Many of us quickly worked out it was the Ancient Greeks and we had some super hypotheses:

* "I think it is a building in Athens because it looked like the columns they used in their buildings."

* "I think this was their parliament because they invented democracy."

* "They  must have worshipped many Gods."

* "Their Gods were important to them if they made a sacrifice for them."

* "I think it shows a Grand Temple and it is high up on the hill to be closer to the Gods."

Were the Anglo-Saxon times really 'Dark ages?'

We first of all thought about why the Anglo-Saxon period is referred to as the 'dark ages'.  We considered lots of different reasons about what this could mean.  Some of our super suggestions included:

• the brutal punishments that were used for people who broke the law
• the fact that children were expected to work from a young age
• that things that the Romans had built fell to ruin
• all the fighting that was taking place between different groups and tribes.

We learned that it is often called the 'dark age' because there is very limited evidence of what went on during that time, so we are 'in the dark'.  

We then worked in small groups to place some different and contrasting interpretations of this period of History onto a 'darkness' spectrum.  It helped us to consider whether it was fair to call this period of History the 'dark age'.

Using Enquiry maps 

We began our new History topic with a picture source.  We had no idea what our new period of study was, so we had to use clues in the picture to make inferences.  We used our enquiry skills to make some super hypotheses.  Joe thought the cliffs in the background could be the White Cliffs of Dover and he thought this made sense as the people attacking could have come from across the Channel!  A few of us thought the invaders could be Vikings.  We had lots of further questions about the picture, such as 'Why do the shields they are carrying have different patterns on them?'.

Today we used our enquiry skills to solve the mystery of the real reasons why Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain.  We had to use clues and evidence to work out reasons that would be likely or unlikely.  We discovered that there were several reasons why they invaded and we then decided if these reasons were push or pull factors.  

For instance, a pull factor was that they were interested in the metals available in Britain. A push factor was the flooding in their homelands that had ruined their crops.

We then watched and evaluated two different video clips about why they invaded to decide which video clip was more reliable and historically accurate.