Our history topic this term has been all about the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings.
As we came towards the end of this topic, we learned about Alfred the Great. Alfred ruled the kingdom of Wessex from 871 to 899 and is remembered for his bravery, wisdom, and dedication to education. We learned about how he successfully defended his kingdom against Viking invasions and worked to unite the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Alfred was also passionate about learning and helped translate important texts into English, making knowledge more accessible to his people. His leadership and reforms earned him the title “the Great,” the only English king to be honoured in this way.
In class, we considered his successes but also contemplated whether he was really that ‘great’, based on how we’d define someone as being great. We thought about people showing kindness and also spoke about some people who inspire us or deserve this title. We found out that Alfred had actually been unsuccessful against the Vikings on numerous occasions and required lots of support from people but their work is not as well recognised. With our learning partners, we numbered ourselves 1 and 2. If you were number 1, you had to think of reasons as to why Alfred was not that great, whilst number 2s were arguing that he was great. We had time to write down our arguments on our whiteboards and then spent time debating our points. We listened well and shared our thoughts with clarity and passion!
We then came together as a whole class, split in two, to debate this serious issue. It meant that we had to consider different opinions and be able to weigh up the historical evidence that we had. We then had to reach our own judgement about Alfred the Great. This was a great way for us to conclude our history topic, we loved it!
