Here is our learning for the summer term:

Year 4B worked on an outline map of the UK - adding regions and a few physical features. This was rolled on to Year 4A whose first task was to piece together the paper and discover what it all was. 
They then thought about why a map might be important to a logistics department of a company. 
Finally they read a memo sent to all employees. What is Tyne? What are regions? This set them off on finding the answers to these questions. 
In doing so they added colours and a key to the map. They also added the seas and are now adding mountains and rivers. 

They worked out that Tea Tyne Biscuits have factories in two different regions very far apart and want to start a new one in a different region. 

The map will roll back to Year 4B so that the HR department can start to create packages of information about what it is like to work and live in different regions…  

And surely there is some drama in there about why the original factories are so far apart in the first place…!

What’s on the “Tea Tyne Biscuits” website? Well of course there is a section about where our factories are. And just like that we had a task - to create the information ourselves. Class 4B rolled on their information about the North East to  class 4A who added information about the South West region. 

Class 4A did some research on Plymouth and out of role created an annotated map of the coastline of the city. 

They gathered in the logistics meeting room at Tea Tyne Biscuits to await one of their team who had been visiting a different region of England looking for a potential site for our new factory. The room was buzzing with chatter about whether each of us as individuals would be willing to leave Plymouth and move to a new town or city…

The returning team member talked to us about how brilliant they thought the West Midlands would be for the new factory. Whilst in Worcester she had actually come across a sale advert for an abandoned factory in Redditch. We had lots of questions we wanted the answers to and jotted them all down ready to contact the Sales Guardians…

Out of role some of us recognised the area in the photographs and were super excited to learn that the building is actually in Redditch. We love the idea of creating a story about something we can visit in real life too!

The head of Logistics met with us (in drama) to say she had found a potential site for our new factory - an abandoned needle making factory. We wanted to find out more…

Class 4B rolled on some information about the history of needle making and a partial floor plan of the abandoned factory. We worked to find out about how needles were made (real life Redditch local history) so that we could add in the missing rooms to the floor plan. 

Well the floor plan itself threw up so many questions! We agreed to hang on to them for now as we are visiting a local museum next week ( in real life!) and this might be a good place to find the answers. 
 

So we moved on to explore who might have worked in the needle factory in the past. We looked at the real census information for the Headless Cross area of Redditch and created a pictorial representation of the people involved in needle making. We then focussed on the needle manufacturers - William Avery, his father and his two brothers. What might it have been like to work for them? The sale advert for the factory says the buyers must honour the legacy of William Avery - but what is his legacy?

We took on the roles of workers in the needle factory. William Avery and his brother arrived - talking to the workers; asking about their families and checking they were all okay. 

However in his private office his mood seemed to change… It looked as if he was troubled by something...

Huge thanks to Iona Towler Evans for planning with us, capturing the children's' voice and team teaching. #teamwoodrow