Competition: Win a topic day

By Peter Riley — author of the Hot Topics series

Read on for details on how to run and win a topic day!

From rivers to rainforests, castles to capital cities, topics offer the opportunity to explore the curriculum creatively. So, what better way to pull together what the children have learned than by holding a topic day? It may sound daunting, but holding such an event can be an effective way of engaging children, enabling them to become part of the topic and put different subjects in context. Playing knights of the round table or pirates of the sea will certainly enthuse!

There’s scope to include the whole school, a year group or just your class in a topic day by using Scholastic’s new Hot Topics series (£20 PB) that have project planners for ages 5–7, 7–9 and 9–11.

Every activity in the planner is backed up by differentiated lesson plans, background notes and photocopiables, so that you can pick and mix to meet your needs. Peter Riley, author of the Hot Topics series, visits schools to help them run a fantastic topic-themed day – see page 43 to enter our fantastic competition where you could win a school visit from Peter.

Read on for Peter’s tips on how to run your own castle-themed topic day…

Once upon a time…

‘Children love castles and you can use a topic day to consolidate work on Medieval life, the Tudors or integrate work on history, technology, music, English, numeracy – in fact any, or all, of the subjects of the National Curriculum. Start by converting your classroom or whole school into a magnificent castle by covering the walls in large sheets of brown or grey paper. In role as stone masons, the children can then add a drawn stone effect. Children could also lie on cardboard and have their shapes drawn round them, which can be cut out and covered in foil to create suits of armour. These could then be placed at the school and classroom entrances. Crepe paper lends itself perfectly to flags that can bear the coat of arms of each class, mounted on poles and used to line entrance ways.

The royal proceedings begin

Your castle topic day could begin with the children changing into their costumes. This may take a little time as knights will need to assemble their armour and mount their cardboard-box horses. Similarly, damsels may need help in securing their pointed hats and arranging their necklaces. The children could then make a procession around the school and assemble in the hall where a herald could open the event, with a proclamation such as:

Hail good people of this place.

Prepare for fun, make haste, make haste,

Tis time for work, tis time for play,

On this our special Castle Day!

You could replace the word ‘special’ with the name of the school, class or year group taking part. The proclamation can then be followed by a rousing cheer after which the children should return to their classrooms – each one a model of a great hall – for the activities to begin.

Castle life

Back in the classroom, children could make their own shields and hang them on the mock stone walls to bring their great hall to life. Younger children could make simple motte and bailey castles and mount them on piles of sand, while older children could organise themselves into groups to make a large model castle featuring a gatehouse, walls, turrets, hoardings and a keep. Pictures of traditional castle folk (lords and ladies, grooms, cooks, and so on) could be drawn, mounted on card and positioned at appropriate places around the castle.

Why not bring a castle banquet to life by calling children to lunch with a fanfare of horns and trumpets? A feast of meat, eggs, pies, jelly, grape juice and ginger beer could be served on a long table (check for dietary needs). After lunch, children could make more suits of armour from modelling clay. This could be followed by younger children holding an archery competition using toy bows and arrows, while older children could make and test trebuchets and fire them at their ‘castle’ to test its strength. The day could be brought to a peaceful close with a dance performance in the school hall.

A castle day case study

Year 5 at Wellfield School in Burnley (pictured) held a castle day using activities from Hot Topics Castles, as well as making a visit to a real castle. During the activities, the children made a kingdom of model castles in their classroom and assembled gatehouses – each with murder holes and a working drawbridge and portcullis. They studied heraldic design and how to interpret a castle map before visiting Skipton Castle. Following their return to school, the children made shields that they used to enact a play, called ‘The making of the knight’, about two squires preparing for knighthood. The performance was followed by the children making a model knight and steed that were later entered into a lively jousting competition!

During the midday feast, a choir sang, a juggler performed and a jester told jokes. An afternoon of further activities followed before the day was brought to a close with ghost stories connected to British castles.