Year 6 enjoyed a very atmospheric walk around Wareham’s Saxon walls.  Our friend Chris Copson met us for a guided tour of the walls and St Martin’s Church.

Year 6 visited the Shire Hall Museum in Dorchester where they found out about how we know about the past?  What are artefacts?  What kind of sources might one use?We also learned about Saxon Crime and Punishment and compared to our previous learning about the experiences of Elijah Upjohn in Victorian times. 

Year 6 had a super day at Leeson House where they developed their mapping skills – reading bearings using 6 figure grid references – and completed some team building challenges… and what gorgeous weather!

Year 1 visited a rather wet and windy Corfe Castle. We had to abandon our (slightly ambitious) plans for lunch in the castle, but we did learn about how many soldiers could defend Corfe Castle (only 40), how long Oliver Cromwell’s men spent blowing it up (9 months) and where King John did his business!

The children showed great resilience and good humour and Mr Wollen and Mrs Dunster were very proud of them.

This is before we went in and were still relatively dry!

Year 6 enjoyed an excellent day Southampton Art Gallery – travelling by train added to the excitement!  We spent time exploring the Perseus collection of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones.  The paintings tell the story of Perseus and the Gorgon Medusa and were a perfect introduction to our learning about Greek myths.  Not only did we unpick the story, we also had a chance to look really carefully at the pictures – discussing the artist’s choice of colours and exploring some of the different techniques he used.  We the had the opportunity to create Medusa heads as wire sculptures. We will be finishing these at school  – watch out for them on display soon.  Finally, we had the opportunity to look at some of the other artwork in the gallery.  We saw a fabulous range of pictures from those painted in the 1350s right up to ‘wall art’  – where the image created by the artist is projected onto the wall, then drawn onto the wall and re-created in paint by artists at the gallery every time they want to exhibit the piece.  Thanks to all the adults who came with us helping to make the whole day really enjoyable for everyone.

Year 5 had a brilliant day out at the Science Museum, Winchester. We learnt a lot about space as well as enjoying all the brilliant activities in the museum.

Year 6 visited Tyneham as part of their topic learning. They explored all the buildings that they had been finding out about on the internet and by looking at public records.  They even visited the school house and farm and pretended that they were performing at the Tyneham Theatre.

Year 6 visited Fort Henry in Studland.  They found out about the important role the Fort and Studland played in Exercise Smash – the rehearsal for the D-Day Landings.