Last week Year 3 went on a journey into the past by experiencing what life was really like in a Victorian classroom. On their way back from morning worship they were greeted by a pair of strict, Victorian teachers with an extremely stringent set of rules and an entirely different teaching strategy…
The rules ‘Silence is golden’ and ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ were bellowed across their classrooms, and children soon learnt not to break them. Daily drills (a Victorian substitute for PE) were practised next to their desks, lines were written monotonously on whiteboards and times tables were recited with precision.
Some children even found out what it was like to wear the ‘dunce’ hat, and although they found it an amusing experience, it gave them an insight into the humiliation a Victorian child would have felt with this punishment.
Although the Victorian lesson was a valuable and insightful experience, there was a huge collective sigh of relief from children and teachers alike when it was over. We’re glad we weren’t at school in the Victorian times!
Following this eventful morning, the children had the opportunity to follow their own lines of enquiry about the Victorians, by writing questions they would like to find out and working collaboratively to design some fantastic informative posters. (So much for children should be seen and not heard!)
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