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St Mary's Catholic
Primary School

Learning and loving on our journey with Jesus

27-31/01/25

Reading Museum and Victorian School Room

We have been learning about how schools were different in the past and we visited Reading Museum and a Victorian schoolroom. We were amazed by the school room, the stairs to get up there were so steep and there were so many things to look it. It certainly looks very different to our classroom.
 

After dressing up in some Victorian school clothes, we were put in height order and transported back in time to become Victorian school children. We were not allowed to talk to each other and could only speak if spoken to by the teacher. We were not allowed to touch anything until told to do so and even had to sit with our hands behind our backs! We learnt how to write numbers on a slate, how to write letters with a pen dipped in ink and practised our reading.

 

We were also told about how children were punished in Victorian times and heard the swishing noise a cane would have made as it moved through the air. We even learnt about the special hat put on children who did not listen or were not learning well. It was called a dunce hat. 
 

After the schoolroom, we explored the museum where there were so many fascinating things to look at. We had fun dressing up, finding old artefacts, doing a scavenger hunt, seeing a replica of the Bayeux tapestry and discovering taxidermy animals which were very interesting. 
 

We had such an amazing day and are very thankful that schools today are not as strict as they were in Victorian times because we had so much to talk about on the journey back to school! 
 

(Don’t worry about our glum faces in the schoolroom, we were excellent at being in character!)

St Mary's Catholic
Primary School

Contact Us

Cookham Road, Maidenhead
Berkshire, SL6 7EG

01628 622570

office@stmarys-maidenhead.org.uk