Great Fire of London Session Information

This session can be taught:

• as outreach in your school  
• as an online session 

The content of these sessions does vary, but we try to keep them as similar as possible.

Half Day Outreach at School: 

• Being a Historian – your class creates a set of questions about the Great Fire of London and we discover how historians find out the answers. The children have a go at reading some extracts written over 350 years ago and work out what objects and pictures can tell us about the fire. 
• Bucket Game – based on some of the fire-fighting techniques used to try and stop the Great Fire of London. The children are divided into two teams who must work together to put out a ‘fire’ in your classroom, using only a single bucket per team. 
• Map Work – the children investigate a map made just after the Great Fire of London, showing the extent of the damage across the city. Can they find all the features that help to tell the story of the fire? 
• Quill Writing – the children are introduced to Samuel Pepys and his diary, before trying their hand at creating their own piece of 17th-century handwriting using our quill pens. 

Need to know:

• For an outreach half day, we aim to arrive at school to begin teaching at 9.30am, fitting in around the established school breaks of your school, until lunchtime. Alternatively, we can teach this session during the afternoon, beginning just after your lunchtime ends and finishing shortly before the end of your school day. 
• We can teach up to three classes on the same day on outreach, but early bookings are essential so we can allocate the required number of staff to make it possible.  
• The cost for half day outreach is £3 per pupil, with an additional flat rate charge of £20 towards transport costs.

Online Session:

• Being a Historian – your class creates a set of questions about the Great Fire of London and we discover how historians find out the answers. The children work out what objects and pictures can tell us about the fire.
• Object Investigation – we show the children how to be mini archaeologists. Having modelled how to use our artefact investigation sheets, we ask the children to independently use their observation and historical enquiry skills, as well as any prior knowledge to form a theory about what they are and were used for. They will share some of their theories before we reveal what archaeologists think they are.   
• Map Work – the children investigate a map made just after the Great Fire of London, showing the extent of the damage across the city. Can they find all of the features that help to tell the story of the fire? 

Need to know:

• An online session is one hour in length.  
• Session times are 9.30am – 10.30am, 11am – 12noon, and 1.30pm – 2.30pm, but we can accommodate slightly different timings. Please ask at the point of booking if this is something that would be helpful for you.  
• You will need to book a short test call with us to check that you can see and hear us on the whiteboard in your classroom. These are available at 3.30pm, 3.45pm and 4pm. 
• We ask that you book separate sessions for each of your classes so we can keep them as interactive as possible. 
• You will be sent an email with resources to print out before your session.
• The cost of the sessions is £35 per class. 

National Curriculum Link:

History - Key Stage 1: events beyond living memory: Great Fire of London. 

Awareness of the past. Identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods. 

Ask and answer questions, choosing and using parts of stories and other sources to show they know and understand key features of events.

Understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past.

Session costs