Learning activities

Starter activities

Starter activity Sa (Links to Mb)

In pairs, children discuss what the main differences are between richer and poorer families today. Make it clear that this is a sensitive issue and that we are not talking about individual children or families from the class or school.

Starter activity Sb (Links to Ma and Mc)

Listen to Source 4b, children have copies of Source 1, Cook's Row. Children annotate the picture with conditions that they hear from the extract. Discuss what we have learnt. What type of families lived in this type of housing? How do you know? Now listen to Source 5b, focusing on the spread of disease leading from these poor living conditions. Discuss illnesses caused by bad sanitation, cramped conditions, and so on. Why would they have spread so easily? (Poor nutrition, poor air, people living close together, and such like) Why was the death rate higher in poor areas? (Availability and cost of medicine.)

Main activities

Main activity Ma (Links to Sb and Pa)

Children are to imagine that they live in a house on Cook's Row. One family member is ill with bronchitis. They are to write a letter to a family member, who does not live in Worthing, describing their living conditions. Include what they can hear, smell, feel like, see.

Main activity Mb. (Links to Sa and Pc)

Children split into 2 groups. One group has a copy of Source 1, Cook's Row. The second group has a copy of Source 2, East Preston Workhouse. (One copy between 3, of each photo.) Explain that both would have been inhabited by poorer people in Victorian times. One is a poorer street in Worthing, the other is a workhouse. By looking at their source what can the children find out? The children's task is to find out as much information as possible about poorer housing and workhouse conditions, using topic books or the internet. The Cook's Row group could be given Sources 4 and 5 too. The workhouse group could be given Source 3, Dietary table. They are going to present their information to the class.

Main activity Mc (Links to Sa and Sb, and Pb)

Children in groups are to create a freeze frame depicting a house on Cook's Row, including an ill member of the family, children, and mother. Include what they can hear, smell, feel like, see.

Plenary activities

Plenary activity Pa (Links to any Main activity)

Show Source 6, Summerhouse in the Goodwood Estate. How is this different to the type of housing that we have seen today? What type of people used this building? Explain that in Victorian times, there was a mixture of poorer and richer people as there are today.

Plenary activity Pb (Links to Mc)

Children show their freeze frames. The teacher or other children can ask those in the frame what they are doing, feel like, and so on. What have we learnt about the living conditions of the poor?

Plenary activity Pc (Links to Mb)

Discuss what you have learnt about the workhouse and the housing of the poor in Victorian times. Children could present the facts on a page, or the teacher could write them on the whiteboard. After the lesson copies can be printed off as a record of what has been learnt.