Year 1 girls had a special trip back in time when they visited The Ragged School Museum in London to get a taste of how school life was for children in the Victorian times. At the heart of the Museum is the unique classroom, which has been recreated in one of Dr Barnardo’s original classrooms, restored as it was in the 1870s when the great social reformer, newly arrived from Dublin, set up his free school for poor children in the East End of London.
The classroom is equipped with authentic and well-used school desks, slate writing boards and chalks, blackboards, easels and even dunce hats and back straighteners! The girls learnt that children had to clean, gut fish, sweep up and not answer back to the teachers for fear of punishment! Even though it was interesting to see how strict schools were in the Victorian times, the girls decided that they very much prefer attending The Study!!
