Victorian Lives – The Impact of Steam
KS2: Victorian Britain/How did life change in our locality in Victorian times?
KS3: Britain 1750 – 1900
Focus: the changes that the development of the railways brought and how people reacted to the changes.
Overview: Using artefacts and other source materials, pupils explore the lives and views of real Victorian people. They take on the roles of characters who were affected in different ways by the coming of the railways e.g. blacksmiths, farmers, landowners, travellers, coal miners, canal owners, unemployed people, engineers, navvies, hoteliers, school teachers, doctors and Queen Victoria. The session culminates in a role-play debate arguing for and against the railways presided over by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Available with a special focus on Brunel’s achievements: Engineer Extraordinaire – Brunel’s Big Ideas.
Victorian Experience – Famous People, Working People
KS2: Victorian Britain/How did life change in our locality in Victorian times?
KS3: Britain 1750 – 1900
Focus: how significant individuals and various changes and developments that occurred during the Victorian era, impacted on the lives of people at the time and are still important today.
Overview: Using artefacts and other source materials, pupils take on the roles of Victorian ‘celebrities’ including Lord Shaftesbury, Elizabeth Fry, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Mary Seacole, Robert Stephenson, Brunel, David Livingstone, Mary Kingsley, Florence Nightingale and Alexander Graham Bell. The session culminates in a large-scale role-play with pupils discussing the changes, developments and inventions of the Victorian era and their relative significance at the time and today. Includes advances in the fields of medicine, nursing, literature, science, engineering, exploration, social reform, charity work, philanthropy, commerce and the role of women.
 Inside the Works – Life in the GWR Factory
KS2: Victorian Britain/How did life change in our locality in Victorian times?
KS3: Britain 1750 – 1900
Focus: conditions in a Victorian factory and what it was like to be a Great Western Railway worker building locomotives in Swindon.
Overview: Pupils step into the shoes of young GWR apprentices and experience the long hours, strict timekeeping, ruthless discipline, harsh rules and hot, dangerous, dirty surroundings of the locomotive factory. Handling original tools and other unique GWR and factory artefacts, pupils explore the different jobs, materials and physical processes involved in the construction of a colossal loco.
Life in a Victorian New Town – The Railway comes to Swindon
KS2: Victorian Britain/How did life change in our locality in Victorian times?
KS3: Britain 1750 - 1900
Focus: the impact that the coming of the railway had on the small Victorian market town of Swindon and life in the New Town of Swindon.
Overview: Pupils are introduced to a family who, along with many others, moved to New Swindon to work on the Great Western Railway. Using role-play, costume, original artefacts and photographs, pupils find out what life would have been like for the family in the community and how it differed from today. Themes include health and disease, church and school, shops and recreation, housing and police, the Mechanics’ Institute, domestic duties at home and factory conditions at work.
The Teachers’ Pack includes materials and maps to help Teachers conduct a self-guided tour around Swindon’s Railway Village themselves. This will take about an hour.
Time Travellers – The Story of People in the Past
Reception/KS1: What were homes like a long time ago?/What can we learn about the past and present seaside?/How are our toys different from those in the past?
Focus: how either Toys or Seaside Holidays or Houses and Homes in the past were different from today.
Overview: Using role-play, story telling and costume, pupils explore the ways of life of people in the past either at the seaside or at home or at school and at play. Detective work handling original objects helps pupils to understand the similarities and differences between the past and the present. Pupils ask and answer questions and develop their understanding of old and new, then and now and changes over time.
Brunel and Stephenson – The Great Engineers
Reception/KS1: Why do we remember Isambard Kingdom Brunel?
Focus: the lives and achievements of the inspirational engineers, George and Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, changes in transport and the coming of the railways.
Overview: Pupils assume the roles of George and Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The class help to retell the fascinating story of the invention of the railways and early locomotives (e.g. Locomotion, Rocket) using costume, role-play, original objects and unique railway artefacts. Your class will face the challenge of finding solutions to the obstacles encountered by the three railway builders such as rivers, mountains, valleys, raising funds, winning support and overcoming opposition. Pupils go on to recreate some of the new jobs that the railways brought and some of the very strong points of view for and against the railways.
Air Raid Experience
 KS2: Britain since 1930
Focus: what it was like for children living through the Blitz in the Second World War.
Overview: The ARP Warden sounds our original siren to signal an imminent air raid. Inside and outside our meticulously researched reconstruction of a public shelter, pupils interpret a superb collection of original WW2 objects and ephemera relating to the Blitz and bombing, air raid shelters, air raid precautions and the role of the ARP Warden. Pupils experience first-hand the conditions inside a shelter including sleeping and personal ablutions. The class consider questions such as how did people pass the time and how did they keep their morale high? After the anxiety of the raid, the Warden sounds the All Clear and pupils emerge from the shelter to reflect on their experience.
Evacuation Experience
KS2: Britain since 1930
Focus: what it was like for children who were evacuated in the Second World War.
Overview: Share the anxiety and excitement as your pupils simulate the experience of leaving, travelling and arriving at destination as evacuees. On our station platform and inside our meticulously researched reconstruction of a wartime carriage, the pupils pack an evacuee’s suitcase, school satchel and lunchbox and handle original WW2 objects relating in particular to gas and blackout. The session finishes with a role-play as pupils are chosen or rejected by host families on arrival in the countryside.
 Make Do and Mend – A Family's Experience of World War II
KS2: Britain since 1930
Focus: what it was like for children living through the Second World War.
Overview: Using narrative, empathy, storytelling, original objects and costume, pupils imagine themselves as part of a large family dramatically affected by the coming of War. As the father and sons join the Army, Air Force and Navy, Mother and daughters are left behind to take on new roles and deal with very altered lifestyles, wartime shortages and household pressures. Pupils assume the roles of a range of Home Front characters including a Land Girl, a Munitions Worker, a member of the Home Guard, a WAAF Officer, an American G.I. and a British spy.
Further Information and How to Book
To find out more or to make a booking call the Education Manager, Helen on 01793 466640 or e-mail steameducation@swindon.gov.uk
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