But first today, let’s talk dinosaurs! They were huge animals that roamed the Earth millions of years ago, and now a set of dinosaur footprints stretching more than 200 meters … … has been found in a quarry in Oxfordshire in South East England. BBC’s science editor Rebecca Morelle has been to check it out.

The extraordinary discovery has been buried deep under these rocks for 166 million years. But even the most delicate excavations can need something a bit more powerful to get going.

With the rocks cleared, the footprints of giant dinosaurs emerge. This was a dinosaur superhighway. It’s one of the biggest trackway sites in the world.  This trackway is incredibly long, more than 100 footsteps stretching for 220m. And, if you come down here, you can see how the dinosaur, as it stepped its foot down, it squelched up the mud in the front to create this ridge. So, we know it was travelling in this direction.

So, you’re literally standing in the footstep of a dinosaur. You know, we’re seeing something and uncovering something that people have never seen before. We’re the first people to see these. And also, it’s just a really great experience to work on something in the UK of this size and scale. It’s so rare to find something this big, where you can get that picture into this past world!

Preserved by a perfect set of conditions, the footprints were made in mud, baked in the sun, then covered with a layer of sediment. They were left by sauropod dinosaurs – huge, long-necked, four-legged, plant-eating beasts. The footprints have now been analysed and the dinosaur that made them recreated.

It’s not moving particularly fast, two metres per second. It’s about the same speed as a human would walk quickly. And so, it looks like it paused, maybe looked behind it, and then kept moving along.

The environment was very different back then; Oxfordshire was covered by a shallow sea. And it wasn’t just a time of giants.

We found this little sea urchin. It’s got a spine that’s broken off. Otherwise, it’s an almost complete little tiny sea urchin. And that’s really important for us, because it tells us that these were marine conditions in open sea water before the dinosaurs came and walked here.

It’s rare to find a site like this, with different trackways crisscrossing the quarry. Dinosaurs dominated the earth for millions of years. Even now, we can find echoes of their lost world in the footprints they left behind.
(End)

• To roam (verb): to walk or move around without any real direction.
• A set (noun): a complete group of similar things that belong together.
• A footprint (noun): the mark made by a person’s or animal’s foot.
• To stretch (verb): to spread over a large area or distance.
• A quarry (noun): a large man-made hole in the ground where stone, sand, etc. is dug out for use as building materials.
• To check something out (phrasal verb): to go to a place to see what it is like.
• Extraordinary (adjective): very unusual, special, unexpected, or strange.
• To bury something (verb): to cover something completely.
• Delicate (adjective): easily broken or damaged; fragile.
• An excavation (noun): the act of removing earth that is covering old objects in the ground.
• To get going (phrase): to start to go or move.
• To emerge (verb): to appear by coming out of something.
• A superhighway (noun): a large, wide road where lots of traffic or things pass.
• A trackway (noun): a line or group footprints (tracks) showing where an animal walked.
• To squelch (verb): the sucking sound like the one made when you’re walking on soft mud.
• Mud (noun): earth that has been mixed with water.
• A ridge (noun): a long, narrow, raised part of a surface.
• Literally (adverb): used to emphasise the truth of something that sounds surprising.
• To uncover something (verb): to discover something secret or hidden.
• Scale (noun): the size or level of something, especially when this is large.
• Rare (adjective): not common or frequent, very unusual.
• To preserve something (verb): to keep something as it is in its original form, especially to stop it decaying or being damaged.
• To bake something (verb): to make something (such as earth) hard by heating it.
• To cover something (verb): to put something on top of something else.
• Sediment (noun): sand, stones, etc. that slowly form a layer of hard rock.
• -necked (suffix): used to describe to the type of neck someone or something has.
• A beast (noun): an animal, especially a large or wild one.
• To analyse something (verb): to study or examine something in detail to get more information.
• To recreate something (verb): to make something exist or happen again.
• Particularly (adverb): very or especially.
• Shallow (adjective): having only a short distance from the top to the bottom.
• A giant (noun): a large and powerful creature.
• A sea urchin (noun): a small sea creature with a round shell that is covered in spikes.
• To break off (phrasal verb): to separate from a larger piece.
• Otherwise (adverb): except for what has just been said; apart from that.
• Marine (adjective): related to the sea.
• To crisscross (verb): to move or be in a pattern of crossing lines.
• To dominate something (verb): to have control over a place.
• An echo (noun): something that is similar and makes you remember something from the past.

In this text, there are various examples of past simple regular verbs. We use the past simple to talk about past events or states that have finished. Regular past simple forms are made by adding -ed to the infinitive of the verb:  start = started    jump = jumped    play = played    want = wanted

There are some spelling rules:

If a verb ends in -e, you add -d: agree = agreed, like = liked, escape = escaped

If a verb ends in a vowel and consonant, the consonant is normally doubled: drop = dropped

If a verb ends in a vowel and -y, you remove the -y and add -ied: cry = cried, carry = carried

If a verb ends in a vowel and -y, add -ed: stay = stayed, enjoy = enjoyed

There are three kinds of pronunciation:

/id/: e.g. wanted, needed, decided, started (if the infinitive verb ends in a /d/ or /t/ sound). Add an extra syllable for these words.

/d/: e.g. played, agreed, stayed, cried (if the final sound of the infinitive verb is ‘voiced’, makes a vibration in your throat). No extra syllable is added for these words.*

/t/: e.g. jumped, asked, kissed, cooked (if the final sound of the infinitive verb in ‘unvoiced’, doesn’t make a vibration in your throat). No extra syllable is added for these words.*

*Note the difference in sound between /d/ and /t/ final sounds is small; the most important part of past simple pronunciation is to add /id/ for base infinitive verbs ending in /d/ or /t/ sounds.

Remember, for the past simple negative and question forms, use: didn’t/ did..? + infinitive verb (don’t change the verb to past simple):

‘He didn’t play’ (not: He didn’t played) ‘Did you want to go?’ (not: Did you wanted to go?)

Examples in the text:

• They were huge animals that roamed the Earth millions of years ago: roam = roamed /d/
• … as it stepped its foot down: step = stepped /t/
• … it squelched up the mud in the front: squelch = squelched /t/
• … it looks like it paused: pause = paused /d/
• maybe looked behind it: look = looked /t/
• before the dinosaurs came and walked here: walk = walked /t/
• Dinosaurs dominated the earth for millions of years: dominate = dominated /id/

*The following verbs in the text are past participle forms, rather than the past simple, but still follow the same -ed pronunciation rules:

bury = buried /d/; clear = cleared /d/; preserve = preserved /d/; bake = baked /t/; cover = covered /d/; analyse = analysed /d/; recreate = recreated /id/

https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/grammar/a1-a2-grammar/past-simple-regular-verbs

https://www.englishpodcastscollected.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BBC-Newsround-Giant-dinosaur-footprints-found-in-UK.pdf

https://www.englishpodcastscollected.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BBC-Newsround-Giant-dinosaur-footprints-found-in-UK.docx