Year 1 Victorian School Day

To begin their topic about ‘School Days’, Year 1 enjoyed a memorable experience that took them back in time, where they experienced what it was like to be Victorian school children. They visited The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock, there they were checked for clean hands and shoes at the start.

Following that the pupils wore white aprons over their uniforms, used a slate and slate pencil for an arithmetic lesson and practised 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. The Headington pupils decided that they did in fact prefer attending school in the present day, rather than in the past!