Victorian School Life Lesson KS2

Little Historians: The Victorians
Lesson 5 of 8
Victorian School Life

Pupils investigate a Victorian classroom painting, real log-book entries and a school slate to find out what school was really like.

This enquiry led lesson develops historical investigation, chronology, source analysis and evidence-based thinking. Rather than simply learning facts, pupils think like historians by investigating a real historical source and asking:

What was it like to go to school in Victorian Britain?

Every Little Historians lesson follows the same six-stage framework:

Time Travellers: retrieval and chronology

Big Question: historical enquiry

Evidence Detectives: source analysis

Discover: knowledge and vocabulary

Prove It!: evidence-based application

History Check: reflection and assessment

What’s Included?

Lesson 5 PowerPoint (plus a PDF copy for quick viewing on any device)

Historical Investigation activity booklet pages for Lesson 5

Teacher answer sheet for Lesson 5

Unit Overview and Lesson 5 plan, with effective questions to ask

The Little Historians Framework

The Source

Elizabeth Forbes’s painting School Is Out (1889), a Cornish village classroom at the end of the day, alongside genuine school log-book entries recording why children were absent. In the Journal, a real Victorian school slate an artefact that cannot speak, but still gives a lot away.

In This Lesson

Pupils will:

Investigate a painting and a real object as historical evidence
Learn why school was not for everyone, and how the 1870, 1880 and 1891 laws changed that
Discover the rules of a Victorian classroom and the punishments for breaking them
Consider what a painting and an artefact can and cannot tell us
Write a diary entry for a day at a Victorian school

Historical Skills Developed

Observation

Inference

Artefact analysis

Historical vocabulary

Cause and consequence

Evidence-based writing

Looking for the Full Unit?

Lesson 1 is FREE. The complete Victorian Unit contains all 8 enquiry-led lessons, the full 62-page Historical Investigation Journal, a Knowledge Organiser, end-of-unit assessment with a supported version and mark schemes, teacher subject notes, a plan for every lesson, the Evidence Detective Question Bank and the Historian Competency Tracker – for less than the cost of the lessons bought separately.

Lessons include:

1. Who Were the Victorians?
2. Who Was Queen Victoria?
3. What Was It Like to Be a Victorian Child Worker?
4. How Did Where You Lived Shape Your Life?
5. What Was Victorian School Like?
6. How Did the Railways Change Britain?
7. How Big Was the British Empire, and at What Cost?
8. Are the Victorians Still With Us Today?

Viewing on a phone or tablet? Use the PDF copy, phone preview apps don’t display every PowerPoint design element.

Teach children to think like historians through evidence, enquiry and historical investigation.

Little Historians
Explore the Past. Inspire the Future.