Victorian Curriculum

Victorian Schools

W.A.L.A: Describe the Victorian curriculum and the classrooms

L.O: The 3R curriculum

What were the classrooms like?

• The classrooms were different than the the ones we have today, there could be 70-80 children in a class.

• Due to this size,older children(known as monitors or pupil teachers) assisted the the teacher in teaching the younger ones

• Furthermore the walls of the schools lacked creativity and were often bare or had merely text for the children to look at.

The 3 R's

• The main lessons were the 3R's -Reading,wRighting and aRithmetic

• These three were seen as the most important areas of education at the time and a vast majority of school time involved the learning of these.

• The children copied work from the board onto small slates with sharp slate pencils

• Abacuses were used to teach mats and the class chanted their multiplication tables together.

• Other lessons were religion,drawing, nature study, history and geography

• P.E was called drill .The children stood in lines and did exercise called out by their teacher

Victorian Punishment on children in school

•  It wasn’t uncommon for children to be beat by canes made from birch wood. Boys were typically caned on their backsides whereas girls would take the punishment on their legs or hands.

• Children who were slower than the rest within lessons were made to wear the shameful dunce hats and sit in the corner for over an hour.

Dunce hat

A tall pointed hat with a letter D or sometimes the word dunce was left conspicuously on a stool in the corner of the classroom. Pupils who were slow at learning were made to stand in the corner wearing the hat while the teacher, and probably other pupils as well, mocked them.

Additional resourceful material

https://youtu.be/WWX-yZK1vv8