On Tuesday Year 4 enriched the History and RE curriculum by visiting the FAST Museum and Woking Mosque.  Year 4 have been studying Samuel F Cody in History.  Cody was Britain’s first aviator and the first man in Britain to make a ‘sustained powered flight by a heavier than air machine’.   The achievement took place at Farnborough in the British Army Aeroplane No. 1A, which was constructed and flown by Cody.  The Trustees of FAST celebrated the centenary of this event by building a non-flying replica of the aeroplane and it is housed at the FAST Museum in the Cody Pavilion.  Year 4 had a marvellous time seeing the replica aeroplane and listening to its engines.  We had a talk about Cody and then we visited the museum.  The children were lucky enough to be able to get into the cockpit of a Hawker Harrier and two helicopters.

After a picnic lunch on the lawn, it was time to leave for Woking’s Shah Jahan Mosque. 

Henry and Olivia in Year 4 wrote the following about their experience at the mosque:

On Tuesday we went to The Shah Jahan mosque in Woking which was the first purpose-built mosque in Britain.  It was built in 1889 by Dr Gottleib Wilhelm Leitner. 

When we arrived we saw a prayer time. We had to take our shoes off when we went inside the prayer rooms. We found out that there are five different prayer times at the mosque. There are different prayer rooms, one for ladies and one for men but the ladies can pray at home if they like.  Muslims have to wash well before prayer time.  We were given a talk about Islam and we learnt about the five pillars and there are also five different names of Allah. There are six clocks in a mosque all representing a time of prayer but the last clock represents Friday prayer time. We also discussed some of the similarities between Islam and the other Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Judaism.

What a fun and informative day we had!