Why is Isambard Kingdom Brunel significant?

On Friday 8th November, the whole school took part in a History Day focusing on local historic figures. During the day, the Year 3s had to put their historian hats on to use evidence to find out who they were studying, by looking at pictures to see what evidence they could find. After seeing the first images, lots of the children thought our historic figure was going to be an artist or an author as they could see a pen and paper in the painting that we looked at. Some children, even thought that the man could be Samuel Pepys, who they remembered learning about at Buryfields. However, all of their opinions changed once they had seen the second image. They spotted huge chains in the background and were able to ‘link’ these to a dockyard, some also made the connection to the Titanic and others believed the man might have been a ship engineer (What great detective work!).

Throughout the day, the children learnt about causes and consequences to the developments in transport towards the end of the 1700s and the impact Isambard Kingdom Brunel had during the early 1800s. Once the learning was complete, the children were posed the question: Why is Isambard Kingdom Brunel Significant? They were given the 5Rs to help them answer the question and the fantastic explanations the children produced, really showcased their excellent understanding.