Victorian school for Year 1
Year 1 kick started their topic ‘School days’ by visiting the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock where they learnt all about Victorian schools and played the parts of Victorian school children.
On arrival they were checked for clean hands and shoes and then requested to put on white aprons over their uniforms, use a slate and slate pencil for an arithmetic lesson and to practise their copperplate handwriting with an ink pen dipped in an inkwell.
They discovered that life was hard at school in the Victorian times and punishments were given freely, such as wearing the dunce’s hat, wearing a back board to help you sit up straightly, having finger stocks tied onto your hands to stop you from fidgeting and worst of all, being hit with the cane for getting ink on your hands or talking out of turn.
To begin with the girls enjoyed the trip so much they said they would like to go back to Victorian times, however once reflecting on this and discussing the consequences, they decided they would rather not go back in time after all.
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