Wow! What an amazing Victorian Day Year 3 have had. The children really got into role as children in a Victorian school, and were surprised to see how in role their adults were too!  To begin, the children lined up in two lines – boys and girls. They had their nails inspected and paid a penny to come to school. A few children did not follow the new school rules and were sent to the Headmistress to be caned or sent to stand in the corner with the dunce’s hat.

The children sang the National Anthem and recited the Lord’s Prayer before moving into learning their spellings and times tables by rote. The children were shocked by the lack of support on offer from their teachers and found the lack of group work and collaboration difficult. We then experienced some Victorian playground games such as marbles, Blind Man’s Bluff, skipping and hopscotch, as well as later taking part in exercise drills (instead of PE).

Whilst the children were learning about the British Empire and the Kings and Queens of Britain, the boys were taken in small groups for gardening and the girls took part in cross stitching. This led to lots of discussion about how boys and girls were treated very differently in Victorian Britain, and whether this was fair!

Well done Year 3. You can look forward to a normal day of friendly faces at school tomorrow.