Year 6 – Crime and Punishment

Year 6 – Crime and Punishment

Project Overview

This half term we have been looking at crime and punishment in our history lessons. However, we decided to use this as a cross curricular link to produce a non – chronological report in writing. We started off by learning about all the different crimes and punishments that took place from Anglo Saxon times, to the Tudors, Highway men and then Victorians. The children couldn’t believe how different life was all of those years ago. We looked at lots of secondary sources in history to fully understand what life was like and carried out activities such as conscience alleys, acted out being in a court room and much more. The children gained so much knowledge in their history lessons. From there, the children were given the task of creating a poster that they then needed to present to the rest of the year group. They had to use their own information from their books and other sources such as the internet to create an informative poster detailing the different crimes and punishments. The children were looking at how we need to put information in our own words and not just copy things that we have read. Once they had presented their poster to the rest of the year group, they then went on to write their own non – chronological report in their writing books. The children have gained some insightful knowledge into this topic and have produced some amazing pieces of work!

What The Student Says

“I couldn’t believe how strict some of the punishments were back then! In Anglo Saxon times, they were crazy.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to live during the Tudor times, they were so harsh and I sometimes didn’t think it was very fair!”

“I love history, it made me want to read more about the different periods of time outside of the lesson. It was a bit gruesome sometimes!”

What skills were developed?

The children have:

• Found out about
  beliefs, behaviour and
  characteristics of people,
  recognising that not
  everyone shares the
  same views and feelings
• Compared beliefs and
  behaviour with another
  period
• Used a range of sources
  to find out about an aspect
  of time past.

What The Teacher Says

“This has been my favourite topic to teach so far! The children have been so engaged and have soaked the information up like a sponge! It has been really interesting to see what they think is fair and what isn’t. I have also enjoyed have detailed discussions with the children about whether we think crime has improved and whether we agree with our criminal justice system at present. The work that the children have produced reflects how much they have enjoyed this topic. The non – chronological reports are extremely interesting to read!”

Miss Brennan – Year 6 teacher