Imagination aflame at Discovery Museum

History was brought vividly to life, when Newcastle pupils re-lived for themselves the drama of the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead, which took place almost 170 years ago.

The Year 2 group from Our Lady and St Anne’s Catholic Primary School had been studying the Great Fire of London in class, and were able to enjoy a more practical approach to the topic when they visited the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.

During the trip, the 30 children learnt about the conflagration and accompanying series of explosions that destroyed large parts of the quayside and the neighbouring towns of Newcastle and Gateshead in October 1854.

“The children took part in a workshop looking at the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead,” said teacher Chris Wallace, who accompanied the class along with the school’s Deputy Head, Sally Justice.

“The children have been studying the Great Fire of London, and so this was a great chance to link that to a local event about places that they know.”

The young historians also had the opportunity to get hands-on during the visit, where they were able to handle relics from the era of the Great Fire, dress up in period mid-nineteenth-century clothing, and even re-enact the event.

“They firstly looked at what happened at the Great Fire and the people that were involved,” continued Mr Wallace.

“The second part was where the children were in groups and given different objects from the time of the fire and had to match the label with the item. They got to use the items and even dressed up in many of them.

“The third and final part was the children taking part in creating a puppet show of the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead, with puppets for the characters we had found out about.”

Our Lady and St Anne’s is based in Newcastle and is part of the Bishop Bewick Catholic Education Trust.

Mr Wallace added: “Trips like this are really important to OLSA, as we are a city-centre school and have such amazing resources close to us, and of such high quality, that it enhances the learning of all children across the school.”