Autumn 1 2025

Fire, Fire! Why Did London Burn?

What an incredible start to the year! The children in Year 1/2 have brought a fantastic attitude into the new year, making new friends, getting to know new classrooms, new routines and have really impressed the adults within the school. The foundations for what promises to be a fantastic year have well and truly been formed.

Over the half term, the children have been thinking all about how different numbers are made, their relationships to each other and the value of the digits within a 2-digit number. The children have been using amazing oracy skills, ensuring that they are able to clearly talk about their mathematical thinking, as well as finding the answer using concrete and pictorial strategies to help.

The children have been thoroughly immersed in our Great Fire of London topic, and it has been lovely to see this continue at home, with news reports, information booklets, artwork and even photos of how Pudding Lane currently looks now! Children have experienced what it would have been like back in 1666 when; quills were used for writing; lines of people passing buckets were used to help stop the fire; houses were made from wattle and daub - contributing to the fire spreading; and streets were significantly narrower with houses jutting out across the streets below. The children have looked at what an eye-witness account is and compared its reliability to pictures and reports that have been created more recently.

What impact did the Great Fire have on London today? Children have looked at the properties of everyday materials and thought about their everyday uses. They can also tell you what materials are now used to construct buildings and why this has changed because of the fire.