On Thursday 2nd May, Year 3 journeyed back in time to experience what it was like for children going to school in the reign of Queen Victoria. We visited the British Schools Museum in Hitchin and found out about how the school system operated back then. As soon as we arrived, the children were dressed in Victorian clothing consisting of a white pinafore and shawl for the girls and a waistcoat, collar and cap for the boys. It seemed as if we had been suddenly transported back in time, particularly when the Victorian teacher arrived looking stern and strict.
The children actually loved experiencing the Victorian classroom. They did arithmetic using pounds, shillings and pence, and handwriting using an ink pen. The children had to dip their pens in an ink well and then blot their writing with blotting paper. Whereas now we use individual whiteboards and whiteboard markers in lessons, back then they used slate boards and a slate pencil. We even had a reading lesson where all the children used the same small reading book and a spelling lesson where all the learning was done by rote.
During the morning ‘transgressions’ were committed by two of the children which resulted in one receiving the cane and the other having to wear the dunce hat (although this was all pretend). Before we left the children got to experience Victorian PE which was called drill and involved repetition of various movements in unison at the command of the drill officer. They seemed to like this too.
After experiencing school life in the Victorian era and finding out about how people lived back then, we came back to our own school and back to the modern school age. Thank goodness!
