Session 1

Focus objectives

• To be able to take part in a whole-class or group discussion, contributing ideas
• To be able to use a written text or illustration to collect information

Key teaching approaches

• Reading aloud
• Rereading
• Responding to a visual image

During shared reading, read the preface 'Tell me your story, Jim' aloud to the children. Ask them to work with a partner and, giving them a copy of this section of the story, ask them to think about what this tells them about Jim. Who do we think this is? When and where do they think this story is taking place? Model using the text to find inferential evidence to support ideas and responses. Collect the children's ideas together and scribe them on a flipchart/IWB file or onto the first page of a class reading journal. Explain that this extract is from a book set in Victorian Britain.

Organise the children into mixed-ability groups and give each group a copy of an image depicting Victorian Britain, e.g. of the homes of the poor, working-class streets or poor children. Ask them to look closely and discuss the images in groups and make notes about what they can see and what it light have been like to have lived then. This could be done on large sheets of paper with the image in the centre, or on sticky notes, or using an IWB. This website provides helpful links to Victorian resource material: http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/primarylinks/victorian.html

During the plenary, ask each group to report back to the class about their image, saying what they noticed.