inquiry – West Earlham Junior School

Welcome to our 2023/2024 Year 5 Blog

Year 5 Trip to Norwich- ‘Our Fine City’

We went to visit the centre of Norwich. Once there we were given a number of challenges to complete on our trip. These included:

Visiting Norwich Market
Creating a map of key Norwich landmarks that can be viewed from the top of the market.
Going on a George Skipper building hunt to think about how one architect can make a difference to one city.
Viewing the George Skipper’s botanical tiles in the Royal Arcade.
Sketching the botanical tiles to provide inspiration for our printing designs once back in school.
Investigating the modern Norwich streets for historical clues as well as journeying underground to find out what hidden secrets lie beneath our feet.

**Looking for Norwich landmarks.**
**Here is the spire of our Norman Cathedral.**

How can one person make a BIG difference?

Throughout the year, we will be using what we have learnt to think about the overarching question “How can one person make a BIG difference?” In the Autumn Term we thought about how King William changed Britain and how the Norman rule shaped the Norwich landscape. We compared the Norman influence on Norwich with the influence of local architect George Skipper. We loved searching for clues in our fine city.

When learning about the Ancient Kingdom of Benin, we thought about how one person (the Oba) can make a big difference to society and a community of people. In the Summer Term, we will inquire into the lives of Robert Kett and Ruby Bridges. Two very different people who made big decisions that will be remembered throughout History. We can’t wait to find out more and think about how we can make a difference to those around us.

Year 5 Trip to the Sainsburys Centre

We went on a local area trip to the Sainsburys Centre. We really enjoyed finding out more about how different cultures use art to represent people and status. We shared our knowledge of the ancient Benin society and explored different ways of casting and printing designs in a specially tailored workshop.

After our workshop, we had a tour around the permanent collection in the art gallery and then went on the outdoor sculpture trail.

We had so much fun- thankyou to all at the Sainsburys Centre for your help.

Autumn 2 Trip to Norwich Cathedral

We have been thinking about our inquiry question “How can one person make a big difference?” and the impact of the Norman Invasion on the city of Norwich. It made us wonder if the Normans hadn’t invaded would Norwich have a Castle or a Cathedral made of French limestone?

Year 5 had the opportunity to put their engineer skills to good use when taking part in an arch building workshop at the Cathedral. We discussed how we thought people in the past built structures without the use of modern technology. We think that the Norwich Cathedral is beautiful and we are impressed by the skills of those who built and crafted each stone.

We were amazed at the size of the Cathedral and thought that the stained glass and stone carvings were beautiful. We enjoyed finding out about the jobs and the lives of the people who built, lived and worked in the Cathedral as well as the roles of people today.

What a fabulous trip.

Year 5 Blog 2022/23

Welcome to the Year 5 Blog. Please read below to find out more about what we have been learning throughout the Autumn Term.

At the start of the term we launched our inquiry by discovering and learning about the landmarks of our fine city, Norwich. As part of our learning we used a range of books, leaflets and online materials to research facts about Norwich. In groups we chose the facts we wanted to share and created posters. After that we created a presentation and shared the information with the rest of the class. We enjoyed using our public speaking voices and being the audience for one another.

Year 5 Trip to Norwich

We went on a trip to Norwich to find out how George Skipper has influenced the architecture of Norwich. We visited Surrey House and the Royal Arcade and created sketches of the botanical tiles. We also went on the Hidden Streets Tour. This was exciting because we got to go underneath the modern day streets. We used our history skills to find out more about the past.

To complete the trip we stood at the top of Norwich Market and drew a map of the Norwich skyline and key landmarks. We really enjoyed eating our lunch on the Forum steps.

What did they eat? How did they cook?

We discovered a possible answer to two more of our questions in our current guided reading book. The Neolithic people ground flour from seeds, mixed in with water to make a dough and cooked the bread on stones heated by fire. We were excited to try this in our Neolithic archaeology experiment!

First, we dug a pit in our Neolithic site.

Next, our adult lit a fire within the pit.

After that, we fed the fire with grass and foraged fire wood until the fire was filling the pit.

Then, we placed a flat stone on top of some bricks which heated up.
Initially, we tried to cook the dough we had made using long sticks but this didn’t work very well. The dough stayed uncooked in the middle!

Eventually, we discovered that the bread cooked quicker if it was really thin. We put it straight on the stone!
Finally, we found out the bread on sticks cooked if you held it in the fire. You had to be careful you didn’t set it on fire though!

It was the best bread that some of us had ever tasted even if we were a bit dirty afterwards!It must have been so much work just to make one little piece of bread!

Guided Reading: Stone Age Style!

We are looking at this book in our guided reading sessions.

We noticed that the front cover seemed to be a real stone age picture and we looked at the contents to find out more about the art of the Stone Age. They used their art to tell stories, keep their history and express themselves like we use books to now. So we had a go at telling our own Stone Age stories:

Update: Did the houses have roofs?

We returned to our experimental model houses after a few days to see if they had survived the weather. Here are our results:

Things that went well

The roof sticks stayed in the ground as we had made sure that they were pushed in well.
Some of us had used leaves to cap off the roof. These stayed on because they were spiked onto the wood.

Things that didn’t go so well

The grass we used had mostly blown away. It was hard to attach it to the wood.
Some of the houses had not been tied tight enough and came untied

Conclusion

We have decided that loose dead grass is not the way. Although the leaves worked, it might have been hard to find leaves big enough for a real sized house.

Bella-Rose found a picture of a reconstruction where they had put material over the sticks.

We also now think they put dirt over the top of this a grew grass over like this…

We are starting now to make a model of Skara Bare using our ideas.

Pictures to follow.

Did the houses have roofs?

One of our questions was about the roofs of the houses that were built into the ground. We talked about the fact that it was so long ago that much of the house may have rotted away. We looked at how they may have constructed the roofs with wood.

Now we have a design that we think will work we have constructed our own house to experiment with how they were covered. We think they may have used grass and leaves.

We will leave our experimental house for a night to see if they survive the weather…

More updates to come.