Lesson C1: What was it like to be a child in the workhouse?
By Sue Carter and Gail Brown, Redhills Primary
Click on any extract for a bigger view
Resources: Make copies of the extracts you will use so that different groups can use them off-screen. They cover various aspects of life in the workhouse. Maybe laminate them?
Gail's teaching tip:
"These are rich but challenging sources. The print and the vocabulary is quite difficult for a Year 3 group to read . I think however a year 5 class would be fine with them. With Year 3 I would use one extract as a discussion piece and highlight some of the "strange" words. The extract that really got my Y3 class thinking was the description of the school room."
Task: In groups, children discuss how the children in the workhouse lived, attended school and worked. Focus on one aspect with younger pupils.
Children report back on differences of life then/now. Whole class list to be drawn up by class teacher from feedback (same Then and Now format as previously). Result = class wallchart for display purposes.
Here are some examples of children's work:
Below are two of the 'Then and Now' pages written by Year 3 pupils at Redhills:
NOW Washing done by mum or dad - THEN Washing done in the laundry
By a Year 3 pupil at Redhills Primary
NOW Choosing what to wear - THEN Wearing a uniform all the time
By a Year 3 pupil at Redhills Primary
The following writing is from children's initial reactions and has not been edited in anyway. It gives a sense of how children of different academic abilities found connections with the historic sources.
The classroom in the workhouse had to keep them warm by setting a fire...
By a Year 3 pupil at Redhills Primary
I would be sad because I wouldn't see my baby sister so much.
By a Year 3 pupil at Redhills Primary
I found out when girls were naughty they would go to the lock up...
By a Year 3 pupil at Redhills Primary
Mums also had to make bedticks and fill it with straw where my mum doesn't.
By a Year 3 pupil at Redhills Primary