"We were really impressed by the breadth of the work that the pupils had done and the high standards of work they produced. " Natural History Museum
Mary Anning
A unit of work written by the school
Despite the fact that Mary Anning's life has been made the subject of several books and articles, little is known about her life, and many people are unaware of her contributions to paleontology. How can someone described as 'the greatest fossilist the world ever knew' be so unknown? She was a woman in a man's England. This is unit is taught in Year 5, in preparation for the children's school journey trip to Lyme Regis in Year 6.
Children's work
We go on a Year 6 school journey to Lyme Regis every year, follow Mary Anning's footsteps and find fossils... but we've not found an icthyosaur- yet!
Lesson 1
Mary Anning has been studied at school for quite a few years now, so at the start of this project we answered the following questions, 'What do I know about Mary Anning?' and 'What am I going to find out during this project?'
We then found the answers to some more questions, 'Where is Lyme Regis? What is a county? Can I use 4 fig grid references?' and 'When was the Jurassic period?'
Lesson 2
What can we find out about Mary Anning from looking at her portrait? Our model based on Mary Anning's portrait.
Lesson 3
What can we find out from looking at different primary and secondary sources?
Lesson 4
Can we make a timeline from lots of different sources?
Lesson 5
What did people think about Mary Anning?
Lesson 6
What happened to the fossils Mary found? Where are they now?
Lessons 7 and 8 (in literacy time)
