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The Sutton Hoo ship burial

(Unit 6B: An Anglo Saxon case study)

Key Questions

Teaching Resources

Why do people move away from where they were born?

Who invaded and settled in Britain a long time ago?

Click here to access the BBC website with details of where the Anglo-Saxons came from and why they came.

How was the grave at Sutton Hoo discovered?

Sutton Hoo society website: Features a history of the excavations, an online tour o fthe excavations and a downloadable resource pack.

National Trust website: Site includes a dramatised story of how the site was discovered. Click here for a lesson plan on how to use the National Trust Sutton Hoo site.

What was in the grave?

BECTA Sutton Hoo online resource pack: A full online resource pack which places the emphasis on active investigation rather than a passive reading of history. Featuring full lesson plans and downloadable worksheets, with mapping to History and ICT curriculua. It uses the British Museum's "Compass" online database to investigate the Sutton Hoo grave and develop children's ability to ask real historical questions about artefacts. Pupils investigate individual artefacts rescued from the site and produce reports on what they have found out using the key questions: what is it made of;what was it used for;what does it tell us about the people who made and used it.

National Trust website: Provides a plan of what and where artefacts were found. Also on the NT website is a simple 'archaeology quiz' to introduce pupils to methods used in exploring burial sites.

Whose grave was it?

Key activity from the BECTa Sutton Hoo pack: Pupils report their findings to the whole class. The class try to categorise their findings in a wall display as they begin to answer the questions "Who was in the grave and what kind of person was he?"

What was life like at the time the person in the grave was alive?

BBC History site: Includes details of the daily life of Anglo Saxon settlers, including housing, dress, religion and law.

BECTa Sutton Hoo pack: also covers this.

What have we found out about who was buried in the grave?

Key activity from the BECTa Sutton Hoo pack: This section focuses on how we find out about the past by using artefacts.

General Resources

Link to QCA unit of work

BBC website: Includes a range of online and printable activities as below:

• Anglo-Saxon manuscripts -make your own Anglo Saxon manuscript
• Anglo-Saxon riddles -Solve the Anglo-Saxon riddles and have a go at writing your own.
• Anglo-Saxon runes -Write like the Anglo-Saxons did in runes.
• Make your own timeline -Test your knowledge of time by arranging the time period tabs.
• Not in my day -Spot five objects that would not be found in an Anglo Saxon home.
• Hild and the village feast -Help Hild collect five objects she needs to take to the village feast.