This engaging whole-class reading session develops children’s understanding of Victorian cities and the fight to improve public health, while strengthening their comprehension of non-fiction texts.
The resource includes an original, illustrated two-page reading text and an accompanying 12-slide PowerPoint guiding children through the learning activities.
The text explores how rapidly growing cities struggled with crowded housing, polluted water and inadequate waste disposal. Children investigate John Snow’s work during the 1854 cholera outbreak, the Great Stink of 1858 and Joseph Bazalgette’s ambitious sewer system. They also discover how public-health reforms helped communities, while considering why healthier cities required evidence, engineering and organised action—and why improvements took time.
A vocabulary check clarifies unfamiliar language, followed by varied activities developing retrieval, explanation, inference, comparison, evaluation, sequencing and summarising skills. Quick-check questions, solo thinking, partner discussions and deeper-thinking challenges encourage children to justify answers with evidence.
Suggested answers, support prompts and teacher guidance are included in the slide notes.
Both the Word text and PowerPoint are fully editable. Best suited to upper KS2 (Years 5–6), the session can also be adapted for older learners.
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£2.50