Horrible Histories!

'Thing in the Hall' - January 2023

Children have returned to find the school hall had been transformed into an imaginary world this morning.

The ‘Thing in the Hall’ as it has come to be known began twenty years ago, when Mrs Piotrowicz attended a course at The Playhouse which encouraged the use of creative environments for all aspects of the curriculum, especially writing. The staff transformed the hall using drapes and props, a tradition which has continued every four years since 1999, allowing each Westfield child to experience the environment at some point during their time at the Junior school.

This year’s themes link to History work with The Stone Age (Year 3), The Maya (Year 4), The Anglo-Saxons (Year 5) and The Vikings (Year 6). All the children were given time to explore and it was super to see their eager faces with lots of comments such as 'O.M.G' and ‘This is brilliant!’ and ‘Is this really the hall?’.

Over the last two weeks, the classes were timetabled into the hall to carry out curriculum work (including meeting a variety of different characters who set the children some tasks!), school lunches took place in classrooms and assemblies will took place as reflective classroom time.

Parents were invited to come along and have a look at the hall on Friday 6th January 2023

We would like to say a big ‘Thank you’ to all the staff who worked really hard to gather the props over the Autumn term and spent a full day on the first day back after the Christmas holidays creating the environment, especially Mrs Clarkson who has coordinated the project this year. 

Some of our parent/ carer responses about our Horrible Histories event:

I was blown away when I was lucky enough to see it in person. It was absolutely brilliant and creative. The work, time and effort that has gone into it was phenomenal. Well done all, it's definitely something  to be proud of. The children absolutely loved it, as did I, thanks for everyone's hard work.

I am very impressed with the quality of work and very happy my daughter is part of such a wonderful school. The effort staff put in is heart warming. Thank you all so much for creating lovely memories for us.

It was a great idea, it brought enjoyment into the curriculum and gave a greater understanding of the topic. The children were so excited to go in.

Thank you, such great time, organisation and effort must have been given towards this experience. I'm sure this event is something our child will have great memories of, when they look back at WJS. They've been talking about their history learning more often at home too!

We visited it when my child who was in year 6 was in year 2, that was the last time you did one. It was fantastic then and I liked how this year was a different theme and creation again. The children are so enthused by it all and talk a lot about it when home from school. I was really impressed with how creative and real it was, and it all felt very impressive.

A lot of time and effort has gone into it and was really enjoyable to look around. The children thought it was great.

Some of our pupil responses about the Horrible Histories event:

The staff put a lot of creativity in the thing in the hall

I felt like I was really there and I wish I could see it again.

It was amazing and fun to explore the Vikings, Anglo-Saxon, Stone Age, Thank you.

I really liked the Stone Age area because of the cave and the woolly mammoth.

I loved the event, and I enjoyed the battle scene we did in the Anglo-Saxon area. It was fun making the Viking dragon heads and drawing in the Stone Age cave. One of my favourites was designing chocolate in the Mayan area. Especially when we got to eat chocolate!

I am super impressed with the effort and dedication put into this topic. I'm devastated that it had to be taken down. My imagination has gotten to be controlled by me and my history this was not a waste. Thank you so very much this schooling and way of learning is incredible.

It was very fun and inspiring. I especially liked the Stone Age area and the pig made from cardboard and painted.

I really liked the horrible history's because it's a fun way to learn and it was amazing.

I liked doing this because it was really fun and helped my learning become more exciting.

It was an amazing adventure to see history and the actors make it better.

It was a really great experience and it definitely made me feel more creative. It made every topic interesting. I really enjoyed being able to learn that way, it was amazingly beautiful. Thank you for all of your work.

It was quite good. My cousins are in the infants and they said it was amazing when they came to visit. Their favourite part was the cave, but my favourite part was meeting the people.

I enjoyed the chocolate tasting.

I think it was amazing