Great Fire of London in Year 1

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So this weekend it'll be helping my 5 year olds make cardboard houses and then lots of pretend fire burning them down. With my eldest we did a big picture with lots of tissue paper fire and I can honestly say it still feels like such an odd thing to teach 5 year olds about.
Why is it still such a big thing on the primary school curriculum? I just don't really see why we need to be taxing 5 year olds about how London burned down once!
Aibu? Surely there other history that's more age appropriate? I know it's all a big gory etc but I just feel like more sensitive kids might get really disturbed by so much talk about burning houses!

Well it doesn't matter how certain subjects are taught, they can still upset some kids. Just try teaching my kid about hearts of his class mate about mummies. And they're 10!

@Nopenott0day Did Pepys write about Nantwich? Did a cathedral rise from the ashes as glorious at St Paul’s? Can you see Pudding Lane and go up the Monument? Nantwich? Not quite the same is it?

Don't worry, they've had a real experience of me setting the cooker on fire and the fire engine coming out. Were versed in appropriate action. So much so that when the fire brigade came out to change our fire alarm, one of them asked if we needed to go stand outside

Ah Egypt is yrv5 here and Romans I think yr 4. I'm trying to remember from the various costumes. My Mummy costume was excellent . There was Vikings in one of the other years too

mine were more upset by the titanic. I also found the content on mummification in the ancient Egypt topic nauseating but the kids didn’t seem that fazed.

I think mummification was y3, Romans were y4. I remember a lot of mummified Barbies being put in sarcophagi over DD's objections because she hadn't finished playing with them.

We went to the monument in half term because DC were so keen on the Great Fire stuff

How could he (at least from a first person perspective) when he hadn't been born yet?
However Elizabeth I donated £1000, the church where people sheltered still stands, and there were 4 bears on the loose.

My point is why is everything so London centric? There is many "Great Fires" all over the UK.

Ok actually you're right.

Fine, I concede defeat and ill relish building my houses of fire this weekend. Can I moan I have twins and have to do twice as much at the same time tho and they refuse to do anything that isn't the same as the other one?

TBF I think their overarching topic is London so....

Never too young for some fire safety training!!!

disturbing ?? Nah - unless you are a snowflake ❄️

I just listened to a great podcast about the great fire of London. There are so many interesting things to learn about this.
Why did London burn so easily? Because the buildings were so close, made of wood and the roofs covered in pitch (very flammable).
How did the weather affect the spread? Unusually high winds in an unusual direction.
What good came of it? St Paul’s Cathedral. Rebuilding London to be safer and less squashed. The community came together to rebuild extremely fast.
What lessons were learned? Lots of fire safety information was gleaned from it and fed into how we keeps fire risk much lower now.
I could go on for hours about this. It’s a fascinating topic and most children really enjoy it.

I now work with Year 5 and 6 children. They don’t tend to remember much about their time in Years 1 and 2. But they do remember learning about TGFofLondon (and in detail). I think that says something.

As history goes I think it's one of the least disturbing topics! Hard to think of much that's less gory or doesn't involve mass scale death. Also tbh I think it's fair enough to start exposing year ones to some level of sad/disturbing history, they're not tinies any more.

I was quite surprised to hear my year 2 child come home with a detailed account of Guy Fawkes earlier this week. She knew he'd tried to blow up the king, been caught and killed. I didn't remember learning those details when I was younger but hey, that's what happened, fair enough.

My daughters school did that.
The kids loved it. All watched from a distance (caretaker stood by with fire extinguisher) and sang London's Burning.
Brilliant!

I've just remembered they did a little play and one girl played the maid who was too afraid to jump out the window.
Oscar winning death scene that was. Excellent acting for a 5 year old.

My children absolutely loved this as a subject at school. It’s one of their favourite things they’ve ever learned and we have event taken them on the GFOL tour as well as they were just fascinated. Also, not very gory. Isn’t it famous for having such few casualties.

I mostly remember the Great Fire, the Plague and the Aztec human sacrifices from school. (I'm still very gory, I only watch horror.) I loved them.

I always thought there must have been more people died in the GFOL than 8 or whatever they tell you. Undocumented beggars, poor people, people passing through etc.

It interests little boys so is a great way to get them learning.

There were repercussions from the fire which had wide reaching implications.

For example the fire very effectively cleansed London of the plague, destroyed the rats and crowded conditions people lived in that enabled its spread.

So much was rebuilt and had to be modernised.

Plus kids love a bit of death and destruction. There's a reason Horrible Histories is so popular!

@mynameiscalypso is your DC school a private one? Surely they have to follow the national curriculum if not private?
KS1 teachers really bring these things to life in schools and I think it’s great they do. The Romans, the Egyptians, Boudicca etc all involved some sort of dressing up and re- enactments when my DC were in primary. They have very fond memories of the battles re enacted or building pyramids 😀

It’s not really that gory though is it? Didn’t only about six people die?

I think it’s a good topic to teach young kids - it’s more likely to hold their interest that say, administrative developments in 14th century wool manufacturing.

We did a lovely piece of writing in English in Y2. It was a diary of the Great Fire Of London from the perspective of a rat!

It interests little boys so is a great way to get them learning.

Do they tell them what the Lord Mayor said? They'd remember that.

And don't forget John Evelyn. He's not so entertaining as Pepys overall, but he did write some very descriptive passages about the Fire.

And as well as St Paul's, there are all the Wren churches - or all those that survived the other Great Fire.

You're wrong, that's a myth.

People often say the Great Fire of London caused very few deaths but that’s only the official figure. Record-keeping in 1666 was extremely poor, many parish registers were destroyed and the fire burned hot enough to obliterate remains. The real number of casualties was almost certainly far higher than the handful recorded, especially among poorer residents who were less likely to be counted in the first place.

I replied to another poster, but that's a myth.

People often say the Great Fire of London caused very few deaths but that’s really only the official figure. Record-keeping in 1666 was extremely poor, many parish registers were destroyed and the fire burned hot enough to obliterate remains. The real number of casualties was almost certainly far higher than the handful recorded, especially among poorer residents who were less likely to be counted in the first place.