Our main topic this term is “construction”. Years 5 and 6 in Middle School are constructing a floating bridge for the London Architectural Biennale in Clerkenwell (www.londonbiennale.org.uk) and the posters requesting empty water bottles generated a great deal of interest so we added bridges to the topic. To begin with we discussed architects and their work as well as looking at the designs of different buildings and bridges around us. After a great deal of discussion it was decided that we could design and build “something” in a corner of the group area. The rest of the school saved their empty milk cartons and we wrapped them in newspaper to make bricks. As the pile of bricks grew ready for use it was decided, democratically, to build a castle with a drawbridge as it could be a castle for Rapunzel or Knights of the Round Table. Construction began and we saw the walls “grow” a little each day. Construction as a topic has inspired the children to create a Lego Land of their own as well as using a great many different materials to construct in 3D.

In addition to taking walks around the immediate area to look at and photograph buildings and bridges this group went on a bridge walk over the River Thames. After taking the No.4 bus to Ludgate Circus we walked over Blackfriars Road Bridge looking at the bridges to the west as well as Blackfriars railway bridge. Having walked along the south bank of the Thames looking at the river and the shape and colour of the various buildings on the opposite bank we stopped to have a picnic lunch in the gardens outside the Tate Modern before walking back over the Thames via the Millennium Bridge (or the wibbly wobbly bridge as the children called it) and on to the No.4 bus for the journey back to school.