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'.