The Great Fire of London – Morestead Class

Morestead Class have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Great Fire of London. They discovered how the fire began in a bakery on Pudding Lane in 1666 and explored the reasons why it spread so quickly through the wooden houses and narrow streets of London. The children were fascinated to learn about the experiences of people at the time, including reading extracts from the diary of Samuel Pepys to understand how the events unfolded from a first-hand perspective.

To deepen their understanding, the children wrote their own diary entries, imagining they were there during the Great Fire. They described the sights, sounds and feelings people may have experienced as the flames spread across the city.

As part of their hands-on learning, they designed and built their own houses in DT, helping them to see why London was so vulnerable to fire in 1666. They also carried out practical experiments, investigating how flames could be extinguished using buckets of water, just as people would have done at the time. To bring everything together, the children created their own news reports from the scene, confidently retelling the events as if they were eyewitnesses.

It has been a fantastic topic, full of creativity, enquiry and enthusiasm, and the children have shown a wonderful understanding of this significant moment in history.