Posted on: April 22nd 2016
On Thursday 21st April 2016, the Museum of Norfolk House & Montessori House opened for just one night in celebration of our new, chronologically-ordered history curriculum! Samuel Pepys welcomed the children in, with diary and all!
Museum visitors first ‘walked among the dinosaurs’ – a vibrant and colourful array of beasts (decorated by our Infant Community), they then entered the Stone Age, and walked into a real Stone Age cave, complete with a crackling fire and cave paintings. Through to the Bronze and Iron Ages, lots of work from Form 2 was on display; especially exciting were the Roman shields and a ‘real‘ Bronze Age roundhouse! Moving onto the Saxon, Viking and Norman period, the children from Form 3 had made village dioramas with all of the life solutions that a settler in Britain might need - a few speeches from King Alfred and pages from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle were on show too, and a ‘real’ Viking sword and shield! Finally, the magnificent, chronologically-ordered Bayeux tapestry made by the children of Form 3 was a wonder to behold!
However, to remedy the mood after all this war and conflict, museum visitors were delighted to find Form 4’s consideration of the Tudor period – a full Tudor banquet complete with a roasted hog, delicious fruits and vegetables, a crackling fire and Tudor dancing. And of course, what with all this feasting and merriment one can get quite thirsty, and Friends of Norfolk House had set up a Tudor Inn named the ‘Nobody Inn’ to accommodate this!
Upstairs and visitors complained they could smell burning... This was due to a baker (Mrs Duffy) leaving a loaf in the oven for too long, and before long fire had swept across the city! Form 1 had produced some beautiful work on the Great Fire of London, from pastel illustrations of the Great Fire to writing too. Next door, Form 5 had considered the Stuart period too, but performed an incredibly mature interpretation of the trial of King Charles I after the English Civil War. Next door, Form 5 had also presented their personalised learning projects on the Georgian period, utilising the new IT equipment we have thanks to Miss Howson, our Head of IT. On the night, Miss Howson also ran a workshop for parents and children alike, on how to research on the internet safely.
Form 6 displayed their project work on WWI, and had prepared a rousing, enquiry-based debate on the key stakeholders of WWII, which highlighted the points of view of many groups. Both the Form 5 and 6 children’s performances were staggeringly good, in terms of their research and preparation, their composition (thanks to their teachers!) and in their confident and articulate delivery by the children!
To finish the museum, our younger year groups had considered ‘The Modern Age’. Montessori Nursery displayed incredible work on Queen Elizabeth II, including a family tree of the royal family - it was enhanced by our coinciding of the event with the Queen’s 90th birthday, so a special birthday cake was made for all our visitors to taste! Reception brought their work on space to life, including letters written to Tim Peake up there in the ISS! Congratulations, finally, to our Student Council Art Competition winners, who found out on the night as the Student Council had prepared an exhibition of the entries.
Huge congratulations to the children for all of their hard work in preparation for our event, and to the teachers who have helped enormously and worked tirelessly to develop the curriculum with their innovative, exciting ideas and sheer hard work.
Click here for photos.
Thank you for coming to the museum!
Mr Smith
Museum Curator
