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Vale View Primary School

Vale ViewPrimary School

Term 1

Our Topic this term is entitled 'Rotten Romans'

What impact did the Romans coming to Britain have on our lives today? Historians suggest that the, ‘Roman invasion of Britain was the most significant event ever to happen to the British Isles. It affected our language, our culture, our geography, our architecture and even the way we think’. How can we prove this? Nearly 2000 years ago, the Romans came to Britain and changed our country. Throughout our topic, we will explore what life was like in Ancient Rome and investigate how the Roman Empire spread and eventually conquered Britain in 43AD. We will look for evidence of the Romans all around us and consider life in Britain before and after the arrival of the Romans.

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To launch our Rotten Romans topic, we took a trip to Richborough Roman Fort where the Romans made their first harbour in 43AD. We learned that the sea has moved much further back than it was 2000 years ago. We saw how the Romans developed the land over time from a simple place with ditches to defend it to a bustling town packed with shops and streets. We discovered how Richborough was once a major hub of commerce and transport and the key to Roman Britain.

The children also got a chance to play history detective and handle a range of artefacts. We discussed what they may be used for and had some quite interesting ideas of our own!

During our study of the Romans. We learned about Roman art including Mosaics. To apply our learning, the children designed their own mosaics using squared paper. They then had to find the correct tesserae and create their mosaic in real life. There was some spectacular work on display which would have fit right in during Roman times!

Roman Roads

The children found out all about Roman roads during our topic. We learned that they were long, hard and straight. Once we had learned about why this made the Romans such a potent fighting force, we created our own roads. We lined our trays with large rocks, then sand and small rocks before putting out large paving stones on top for a solid surface.

 

Making Poo

 

To help us understand how the digestive system works, we learned about how our bodies break down food from the mouth to the toilet. To help us visualise this even more. We made our own digestive system out of a pair of tights, a tray and a plate. The children acted as the mouths, chewing the food with their hands before putting it into the tights which acted as our intestines and stomach. Here the food was passed down until it came out the other end as waste products. Everyone was thoroughly disgusted and educated!