History in Year 5 – Autumn Term 2023
Following on from our fantastic trip to Lincoln Cathedral we’ve returned to school eager to find out even more about the Venerable Bede’s manuscript that we saw first hand at Lincoln Cathedral. As such, the class set about reading all about the Viking’s arrival at Lindisfarne.
The sources we examined showed that the event was terrifying to English Christians not only because of the great violence inflicted but because a Christian sanctuary was vandalized by a pagan people. In Alcuin’s letters and the Historia Regum, the raid is above all depicted as a desecration, an assault that defiled a holy place. We further read about how there were, “amazing sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky,” and debated the reliability of these historical sources.
The children really impressed me with their ability to take these historical sources and apply their understanding of them to complex questions which really probed their new-found knowledge. We hope you enjoy the photographs of us applying what we have learned.
