We have been learning about the Maritime History of Great Britain and we decided to hold our own inquiry into who was responsible for the tragic loss of life when the Titanic sank in 1912. Please watch our Titanic presentation shown in the PhotoStory below. Click Here To View We staged our own courtroom drama in the classroom where groups of us were given the task of representing different people who might have been at fault for a particular reason. The Year Six Jury then gave their verdict! Ben said, “I think that the Titanic’s architect, Mr. Thomas Andrews, was to blame for the deaths of over half the ship’s passengers. His design of the sixteen separate air compartments to make the Titanic unsinkable was actually a good idea and I would definitely use that if I were ever to build a ship. His mistake though was greed. He simply wanted to make more money by adding another deck where there should have been larger air compartments. This is why I believe that Thomas Andrews was responsible for sinking the Titanic (not on purpose, of course).” Alisha said, “I think that the disaster that happened on 14th April 1912 was a very upsetting incident. I believe that Captain Edward Smith (the person who was in charge of the ship) was to blame because he refused to slow down, even after he had already received seven iceberg warnings from his crew and other ships. He wanted to get to America in a record time of six days but was probably put under a bit of pressure to do this from Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of White Star Line. It is my opinion that Captain Smith was responsible for all those people losing their lives that day.” The result of our inquiry into the disaster was that 66% of us felt that Thomas Andrews was responsible for the loss of hundreds of lives, because of the sixteen watertight air compartments not being high enough and also because there weren’t enough lifeboats on-board. Both America and Britain held inquiries into the disaster at the time and both agreed on who was most at fault - Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian. They stated that if Captain Lord had gone to the Titanic's assistance when the first distress flare was seen, then all the passengers would have been saved. The Californian was about 19 miles north of the Titanic that night. Sometime after midnight, the crew on watch reported seeing rockets being fired into the sky from a big liner. Captain Lord was informed but it was concluded that the ship was just having a party and therefore no action was taken by the Californian! We have worked closely again this year with Mr. Pearce and the Timsbury Allotments Committee. We visited the allotments where we took part in a fruit, herb and vegetable identification quiz. The allotment holders are now helping us to plant and tend our own vegetable beds in the school grounds. We are growing an extensive range of vegetables which will be harvested later in the year, cooked in the school kitchen and served with school dinners. Rebecca said, “I really enjoyed the visit to the allotments. There were so many vegetables and flowers there. I learnt about a vegetable called celeriac that I’d never heard of before. I’m really looking forward to growing our own fruits and vegetables in school this year.” In our topic on HAMLET, we studied the Shakespeare play and also found out about the country of Denmark. In Art we used the iconic image of The Little Mermaid as our inspiration to design abstract mermaid pictures which were then created using sponge printing techniques. Alex Cornish visited us again this year whilst he was on his UK Tour. He performed all of his hits for us in the Year Six Arena! Joe and Jack even got to accompany him on their guitars! At Christmas, we decided to spread a bit of goodwill to all children by going carol singing around the school building. It caused quite a bit of interest, especially amongst some bemused Reception children! And finally, we took advantage of a playground filled with snow in January to create our own ‘Snow Tigers’. We will be visiting the Isle of Wight Zoo later in the year and are looking forward to seeing their white tiger Zena.