On Friday 8th March Year 5 performed their play Raiders! It was a tale of time travel and Viking raids, all written and performed by the children themselves. The process began back in January. Sadly the Northumberland weather meant that we were unable to take a trip to Lindisfarne to soak up the atmosphere of the first place in England that Vikings landed, but we still used the day productively. We read together a story about a boy who goes on holiday and, while sleeping in a tent, travels back in time to an Anglo-Saxon village. As the story unfolds, he is the one to warn the village of an impending Viking raid and even rescues one of the villagers during the battle. The children took this story as their starting point and came up with their own version: four children from Mowden Hall School visit Jorvik Viking Centre in York before travelling back in time and, eventually, helping to save the village from the Vikings. 

The children took to the process of writing their own play with great enthusiasm and a real sense of ownership. They developed the story line, characters and wrote the script with little need for much input from me. (Although the History teacher in me had to insist that we didn't have horned helmets!) The cast’s commitment continued when it came to learning their lines and rehearsing.

The final performance itself was a triumph - full of humour, action and excitement. The children should be very proud of all that they have achieved this term.

Mr Townley