Title: A Child Through Time

Guiding Question: Would you prefer to live as a child in the past or the present?

Narrative

In Spring of 2021, pupils in Years 3 and 4 studied a cross curricular expedition

To answer the guiding question, ‘Would you prefer to live as a child in the past or the present?’

The Learning Targets were:

History

Suggest causes and consequences of some of the main events and changes in history

Understand the concept of change over time, representing this, along with evidence, on a timeline

Use more than one source of evidence for historical enquiry in order to gain a more accurate understanding of history

Art

Improve mastery of techniques such as drawing, painting and sculpture

Use a number of brush techniques using thick and thin brushes to produce shapes, textures, patterns and lines

Mix colours effectively

Paint: Use watercolour paint to produce washes for backgrounds then add detail

Paint: Experiment with using colour to convey mood

Collage: Use coiling, overlapping, tessellation & mosaic

DT

Measure and mark out to the nearest millimetre

Cut materials accurately and safely with appropriate tools (e.g. sanding wood)

Select appropriate methods to join materials

Music

Sing from memory with accurate pitch

Maintain a simple part within a group

Show control of voice

Geography

Name and locate counties and cities of the UK, geographical regions and their human and physical characteristics (hills, mountains, coasts, rivers) & understand how some of these aspects have changed over time

Describe key aspects of human geography including settlements and land use

Science

Identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating

Recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear

Recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases

Find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it

Find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it

Recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light

Notice that light is reflected from surfaces

Recognise that shadows are formed when the light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object

Immersion

Our immersion experience was rich and diverse, first visiting Ripon Museum and Workhouse where they gained first hand experience of the hardships and difficulties faced by children of these times. Following this, the children returned to school and in the subsequent days fully engaged in our very own ‘Victorian School’, taking part in a range of activities to truly gauge an insight into how different school was in these times. In order to further raise ‘excitement levels’, a local expert and antique dealer paid a visit to school and brought a selection of artefacts and toys that piqued our children’s interest: chimney sweep tools, lanterns and wooden hoops to name but a few. Finally, as part of the sustainability side of this expedition we made ‘school gruel and bread’ and had a ‘mid morning feast’ to demonstrate, in a rather fun way, how little and unpleasant meal times were.

The start of our second half term consisted of fieldwork to Eden Camp showing our children the harsh reality of living in wartime Britain. An expert was sourced to retell their first hand experience of WW2. Following this, our ‘wartime’ children were all taken on a trip with their worldly belongings to experience evacuation.

Our Learning:

We undertook our expedition with the underlying purpose being that the children developed their knowledge and empathy of how difficult children’s lives were in the past and how the development of technology over the past 30 years has given the children more opportunities to see the world. A particular focus was on the Victorian Era and how all children were expected to work terrible and often dangerous jobs from an extremely young age; also children explored the effect WW2 had on the children that were evacuated from their families and homes as well as the evolution of technology which has impacted on ‘social and family time’ particularly in present times.

In order to engage with high quality texts, we worked through the children’s novel ‘The Street Child’ by Bertlie Doherty and appropriate chapters of Charles Dickens' ‘Oliver Twist’. We used the text in daily guided reading sessions to address the difference between the rich and poor, exposing the children to facts relating to the Victorian period to reveal how badly poor children were treated to encourage empathy and active discussion.

As per our three cases studies, the children looked at the harsh reality of being born into a poor family in Victorian times; the ways in which children were exploited and made to work and how very different schooling was compared to now. Following this, we looked at ‘Wartime Britain during the Second World War’; the effect it had on the lives of children, the process of evacuation and the introduction of rationing. The final case study focused on the huge development in technology over the past 30 years with questions being asked as to what comes next. Throughout each of the case studies, our children produced a variety of pieces of art and narrative which they were able to draft and redraft for our final product.

Final Product and Celebration of Learning

Our product launch took place during the summer term. We unveiled our product, a series of boards including information about what life was like for a child at that time, at Doncaster Museum as part of the ‘grand opening’ celebrations in their brand new venue in Doncaster Civic Quarter. Families were invited to view our product and ipads were used to scan QR codes that further detailed our work across the three different case studies.