This week, we were lucky enough to visit Scotland Street Museum and take part in a Victorian classroom experience.  This is related to our IDL work for this term were we are looking at people in history.

The first thing we did was separate into a boys group and a girls group.  We went up different staircases and to different coat rooms to put on costumes.  We wore clothes that children would have worn as their uniform in Victorian times.  The clothes are different from what we wear and this was good to compare clothes from history to clothes we wear now. Then, we had to line up in perfectly straight lines outside the classroom and wait for our teacher.  A few of us had nervous giggles.

After this, we took part in an arithmetic lesson which is like our mental maths lesson.  The teacher was so strict and made us all sit up straight with our spines against the back of our chair.  We had to sit boy girl, boy girl. It was really scary as you can tell by the look on our faces.

Our Victorian teacher told us she did not tolerate talking or carrying on in class.  We found out she was telling the truth when she made some of us stand up as a punishment for disobeying her.

Next, we took part in a handwriting lesson.  The handwriting back in Victorian times was very different to handwriting today.  We wrote with ink and a quill which was very hard to do.  Much harder than writing with a pencil or a pen.

For another task, we had to use mini black boards.  We all thought it was much easier to use the whiteboards and pens that we are used to.  The questions our Victorian teacher was giving us were so tricky as we had to convert money used in 1884 into money we use now.

Our Victorian teacher told us of ways that teachers used to punish children who misbehaved. She showed us the belt which is made of leather and children were hit on the hand within this several times.  She also showed us the cane which was made of wood.  Some children would be hit on the hands with this and others would be hit on their bare legs with it.  This sounded agony! The last punishment was the Dunces Hat. Children would be made to wear this hat and stand out in the playground as a form of humiliation. Yahya very kindly offered to model the Dunces Hat for us.

This was a fantastic experience for finding out what school life was like back in the Victorian times.  We found out there were lots of differences and think that we prefer the school life we have today.