History at key stages 1 and 2 (Year 5/6)

Unit 11: What was it like for children living in Victorian Britain?
Section 2: What was life like for a poor child in the 1840s?

Objectives

Children should learn:

to collect information from a range of sources and draw conclusions about the Victorian period
to understand that ways of life differed greatly across Victorian society
to write a narrative using historical detail
to understand that there are many representations of the Victorian period

Activities

Outcomes

Children:

Show the children an extract from a video about life for the poor in the nineteenth century. Discuss the extract and what sources of information the film-maker might have used and what other sources might be used to find out more.

Provide a range of sources, eg extracts from contemporary authors (Kingsley, Dickens), reports on factories or mines, engravings. Ask the children to make a list of what they can infer about the life of poor children from the sources and present it to class.

Provide some information on the numbers of working children, their hours of work, the types of jobs they did and their lack of education. Discuss why children worked in Victorian times.

Ask the children to imagine they are a Victorian child working in a factory and write an extract from a factory report describing the work a child of their age was doing.

list a number of aspects of daily life for poor Victorian children
produce a simple narrative to illustrate what they know about the work done by Victorian children

Points to note

Film versions of Oliver Twist will provide suitable material, as will extracts from school broadcasts.

Illustrations of slums and pictures of working children can be found in many textbooks.

Extracts could be from original or abridged versions of Victorian authors, eg Kingsley, Dickens.

Many local libraries hold copies of health reports or factory inspection reports.

This activity could be adapted by providing word banks and sentence/paragraph starters.

A link can be made to work in reading by comparing film versions of novels with extracts from the original text. Identify the differences in the way that the story is told, eg through the loss of the narrator. Examine the distinctive voice of contemporary accounts and compare them with modern historical fiction. Use this investigation to help them adopt an appropriate voice and style in their own writing.

Sections in this unit

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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.


	1. Who were the Victorians and when did they live?
	2. What was life like for a poor child in the 1840s?
	3. Who helped to improve the lives of Victorian children?
	4. What was it like going to school at the end of the nineteenth century?
	5. How did different Victorian children use their spare time?
	6. How did life change for children living in Victorian Britain?