The Great Fire of London

The Year: 1666

The Place: Bakery in Pudding Lane near London Bridge

The Date: September 2

The Reenactment: Friday 15 October 2021 - Year 2B

In Year 2, our topic work has been based on the Great Fire of London. In 1666, a huge fire that started in a tiny bakery burned down most of London. The fire was so big that it was called the Great Fire of London.

The fire lasted four days, and burned down over 13,000 homes. There are a lot of reasons why the fire was so large, mostly to do with the way houses were built – a lot of them were made from wood, and were very close together. We know what happened during the fire because people back then wrote about it in letters and newspapers – for instance, Samuel Pepys wrote about it in his diary. When houses were rebuilt, a lot of them were made in bricks instead of wood, and they weren’t built so close together. Sir Christopher Wren designed a monument to remember the Great Fire of London, which still stands today.

To support the teaching and learning of this interesting topic, Year 2s set up their role play areas with the GFL theme; 2S has a bakery, 2B a fire station and 2J a hospital. We also organised a trip to a fire station to learn about fire safety. Year 2 children have not only learnt about the Great Fire of London and how that influenced on town planning, but they have also learnt new skills through role playing and drama and they got to see first hand what the job of a fire fighter entails. This brings us back to the reenactment during assembly Year 2B's is based on this historical event. Do not miss this historical reenactment of the Great Fire of London.