I adapted each of Samuel Pepys’ original diary entries (plus one of John Evelyn’s) into writing that my students would be able to understand and used them for whole class reading lessons. There is a diary entry plus literal & inference questions for each of the following dates: Sunday 2nd September 1666 Monday 3rd September 1666 Tuesday 4th September 1666 Wednesday 5th September 1666 Thursday 6th September 1666 Please note that although I have adapted the diary entries, they are still somewhat difficult to read because I kept as true to the original as I could. My high attaining Year 2 class was able to understand each of the entries and answer the literal and inference questions but my lower attaining students struggled.

This is an 11 lesson unit of work on the Great Fire of London. There is a medium term plan and slides for every lesson and each lesson is focused on answering a question. I designed this for Year 2 but it could be adapted for older years if needed. These are the questions covered in the unit: L1: When did the Great Fire of London happen? L2: What was life in 17th century London like? L3: How did the fire start? L4: Why did the fire spread so quickly? L5: How do we know about the Great Fire now? L6: How did the rest of Britain learn about the Great Fire in 1666? L7: Who was Samuel Pepys? L8: What did Samuel Pepys see? L9: How did the Great Fire end? L10: What could have been done to end the fire sooner? L11: What happened after the Great Fire? I had originally planned to create a 12th lesson entitled “L12: What impact did the Great Fire have on modern-day London?” but I ran out of time to teach that lesson in the term.

This is a display board I made in one of our classrooms, everything I used is in this resource so it is ready to go!