In classes Rowan, Sycamore and Willow, their adventure, Island Invaders, began when the children were introduced to two Anglo-Saxon children: Osmund and Hilda. They were brother and sister living in Anglo-Saxon Britain in 793AD. Osmund and Hilda agreed to show the children all about their way of life.

The children learnt many things about the Anglo-Saxon way of life. One of which was the different jobs and roles for people in the Saxon village. The children first completed a Burn 2 Learn, which allowed them to learn about the specific roles for men, women, boys and girls.

Their SPAG focus for the non-chronological report was to use colons to introduce a list. They wrote some sentences about the roles of potters, metalworkers and woodworkers using a colon to introduce what the tradesmen made.

Using all the information they had complied, the children wrote some very informative non-chronological reports about the roles undertaken by people in the Anglo-Saxon village.

Osmund and Hilda were then keen to tell the children about the kinds of food they ate so the children could host their own Anglo-Saxon feast for their parents. The lesson begun with a blind taste test, where 5 children had to guess what the food they were eating was. Everyone in class then got a chance to try some. Then using all they had learnt, the children wrote a menu for their Anglo-Saxon feast!

In preparation for inviting their parents in to school, the children wrote formal invitations requesting they attend. In Willow and Sycamore, they completed some work looking at how to change the formality of their writing before writing the final invitation. In Rowan, they included brackets.

It was then time for the Anglo-Saxon banquet! The three classes made a 3 course meal. The banquet was a huge success and lots of parents commented on how tasty the food was so the children decided to write a set of instructions to take home.

In Rowan, they included adverbials of time in the instructions. In Willow and Sycamore, they completed a Burn 2 Learn where they sorted modal verbs, adverbs and imperative verbs, that they would later use in their writing.

Next came some breaking news: the Vikings were invading! The children found out key facts about the Vikings through completing a Burn 2 Learn outside. They then matched these answers to the questions inside.

They then looked at different pictures depicting the Viking invasion on their longboats. The children each chose a picture to re-create using watercolours.

Willow class then imagineered what the invasion may have been like for both the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. They listened to music and put post its around the room to answer some key questions. Before completing their setting descriptions of the invasion, they completed a SPAG activity looking at using relative clauses. In Rowan, they used fronted adverbials in their writing.

Osmund and Hilda then introduced Willow to their craftsman father. He needed their help in selling the weapons he made to the Anglo-Saxon warriors heading into battle with the Vikings. The children first learnt about the weapons by reading fact files and transferring important information into their own.

They then explored the use of persuasive features to write a ‘persuasive post it’ to describe their weapon. The children then completed SPAG activities for the objectives: modal verbs and inverted commas. Using all they had learnt, they wrote the persuasive adverts.

The classes then really felt like they had experienced life as an Anglo-Saxon through the eyes of Osmund and Hilda so decided to step into their shoes and visit an Anglo-Saxon village for the day. The children dressed up as Anglo-Saxon children, were put into families and completed Anglo-Saxon daily jobs: cooking, farming, weapon practice and even had to protect the village from a Mercian invasion!

Following the trip, the children in Sycamore completed a Burn 2 Learn where they sorted the photos of themselves into chronological order and wrote what they did at each point of the day. They then looked at an example of a recount, they highlighted writing features on the example piece. In preparation for writing, they looked at changing present tense to past tense. Then they wrote detailed recounts of their experience.