It worked for me: key stage 2 cameos

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‘We are most definitely amused!’ – a plan for teaching the Victorians

This medium-term planner for year 6 was developed and taught by Carole Roberts while she was teaching at Gatcombe Park Primary School, Portsmouth. She was deputy headteacher and also history subject leader. What is interesting about Carole’s approach is her use of a limited number of key questions, each of which is designed to focus on a key aspect of the knowledge, skills and understanding for national curriculum history. She starts with an overview and then allows certain aspects to be treated in depth. At the end of the study she introduces a retrospective look at the whole period, which offers an excellent way of approaching historical interpretations of the past. Carole has also identified the specific written products she expects all children to produce. This serves to ensure consistency across teaching groups and makes her job of monitoring outcomes much easier.

Section one: What were the main changes that took place during this time and who were the people responsible for them?
In this lesson the children need to grasp that this is a period of rapid change and need an overview of these changes, especially in industry, education, and social and medical care. Carole begins the lesson by producing a £5 note with Stephenson on the back. This inspires questions about who he was and what he did. The children then brainstorm these early ideas to come up with questions to research about changes. The children then polish their literacy skills by skimming and scanning texts to discover people’s views of the main changes. In the plenary children decide on eight chapters they would include if they wrote a book on Victorian Britain. Carole also mentions some alternative teaching strategies: children could make a brief group presentation on main changes and the role of key individuals or they could sort cards showing pre-Victorian, post-Victorian and Victorian images.

Section two: What were the effects of change – especially in the factories?
This section encourages children to appreciate not only how their Victorian counterparts were treated in the mills and factories but also introduces the concepts of bias and reliability when using sources. Carole introduces the topic by giving children a list of punishments, fines and rules along with a clear picture of the inside of a mill. After they read these sources and get a picture of what life was like for these children, they take part in a ‘still imaging’ activity. A few children play overseers who have to brief the others about the mill rules, and each child has to remember and repeat one of the rules. They then perform a play based around the enquiry into mill conditions. This prompts questions about whether the children would have told the truth or indeed if they would have been able to tell the truth. Carole finds it useful to show the BBC’s Landmarks: children in Victorian Britain video to set the scene and give a flavour of the period.

Section three: How did town life compare to life in the countryside?
Here Carole uses a field visit in conjunction with listening and observation skills. She reads the class an extract from Dickens’ Hard times and asks the children to compare it with Dr Mayhew’s reports about back-to-back housing and a Dore print of a backstreet scene. They use these three sources to compose an oral account of a typical urban scene. They then visit Manor Farm and use their experiences there to compare the urban and rural way of living. On their return they create an annotated wall display of their findings and pretend it is a museum that they have to explain to visitors.

Section four: What were the main changes in transport?
After sequencing different transport pictures on a timeline (locomotives, trains, sailing ships, steamships, bikes, cars, trams, etc), the children study a street scene from 1900 and annotate which methods of transport were new and how long they had been available. They then discuss how these changes were not always welcome, reading opinions about the coming of the trains and looking at anti-train cartoons. They also carry out a case study of Brunel to highlight the impact of an individual on change.

Section five: How did education differ for the rich and the poor?
The aim of this section is for children to be able to write a detailed inspector’s report on what they find in a typical Victorian school. They do this by studying primary source material such as punishment books and inspectors’ reports and looking at images of early and late Victorian school rooms. This is enriched by using role play to act out some of the incidents the children read about and by watching the BBC’s Landmarks: children at school video. The children make deductions about Victorian education and compare it to their own schooling. They also comment upon the different types of schooling they read about.

Section six: A dark or golden age?
To conclude the unit, Carole asks the children to give their initial thoughts on this question and then review their opinions in the light of reading source materials. She begins by distributing a range of positive and negative source materials around the room. After giving the children a few moments to consider their sources, she asks them to tell the class if the picture shows good or bad things about the period and why. This usually prompts a lively discussion. The class then produces a display summarising the period using only five pictures. They have to research and choose their pictures carefully as they have to justify their choices. Finally they have to write a caption for each picture.

Carole has found it very useful to create a series of wallets containing all the resources needed for each key question. This has cut down on clutter and helped teachers focus their pupils’ learning without getting sidetracked by unnecessary content.