November 2nd 2018
Cross-curricular Humanities Visit
Earlier this term the three Year 5 forms toured Wallingford throughout the day looking at the three different aspects of Humanities.
For the History side, they had a walking tour of Wallingford’s Anglo-Saxon and Norman fortifications including the castle grounds. This was led by a Wallingford historian expert. He and the boys traced the line of the old Anglo-Saxon fortifications, dropping down into one of the towns three moats, in order to get an idea of what it would have been like to attack the castle from that tricky position. From there, the boys climbed up the Norman Motte within the castle grounds. At this highest point they were able to look out over the remaining Norman fortifications with views of the river Thames and town and were able to identify the strategic values of the castle and why it was built where it was.
For the Geography element of our Humanities trip, we went for a walk through time around Wallingford. The boys looked at the Saxon ramparts trying to understand how effective they were as a defensive fortification and also how important the Wallingford must have been to spend so much time and effort on them. We followed on by becoming building detectives, working out the different ages of the buildings in Wallingford by studying the location, design and construction materials chosen.
The RS work centred on the churches of St Leonard and St Mary le More in Wallingford. The boys looked round both and identified the major parts of a church. They also visited the museum paying particular attention to the Norman and Anglo-Saxon artefacts on display and enjoyed the benefit of a knowledgeable guide.
