On Monday and Tuesday, Year One came in to school very excited for their trip to Reveley Lodge. We helped each other to put on the high-vis jackets and listened carefully to which group we were going to be in and then we were off! We walked all the way there holding our partners hand to make sure we kept each other safe. We proudly represented Merry Hill School in front of members of the public and said lots of “Thank you’s” to people, dog-walkers and cars who stopped so that we could go on our long journey. Miss Honnor and Miss Bates were both very proud.
When we got to Reveley Lodge, we recapped what we have learnt so far in History this term. We remembered that ‘History is learning about the past’, that ‘significant means a person or a thing that is important’ and that Queen Victoria is significant because she made a change to schooling which has lasted all this time. Queen Victoria made schools free for everyone so children did not have to go to work anymore.
The adults at Reveley Lodge told us a bit about the house and what it would have been like to live there, then we got dressed up to look like Victorians. The girls wore smocks and the boys had waistcoats.
In the stables, we learnt how the laundry would have been done before electricity was invented. We were interested to find out they used a dolly tub and dolly stall, and watched how they turned a bar of soap into soap powder by shaving it! We thought this was very exciting! We saw the mangle they would have used to get the clothes dry enough to hang out on the line and were very pleased to be allowed to have a turn to test out these artefacts.
We also spent some time in a pretend Victorian classroom. We already knew that when Queen Victoria first became queen, the children had to pay to go to school but we were very excited to hold and see the coins that they would have paid with! Unfortunately… some of us had forgotten our coins so had to explain to the school inspector why!
One excuse we came up with was that our grown up’s had had to use the money to buy bread so we could eat. We had a go at writing on a slate board with a slate pen and the inspector came to visit whilst we were there and checked we were using our right hands. She looked in the attendance book and the punishment book. Some children had broken the rules and pretended to have the cane! We heard it swishing through the air and imagined what it would have been like for the poor Victorian children who really were hit in the past.
Finally we had some afternoon tea. The adults taught us how to hold the tea cups correctly and how to put just enough jam on the bread for one mouthful. We also enjoyed the Victoria sponge cake. We had a great time at Reveley Lodge and learnt so much. We want to say an enormous thank you to our fantastic LSAs and parent helpers who helped to make the trip possible.
How to support at home
- Visit Reveley Lodge with your family – show them some of the things you now know about
- Look out for old houses and buildings when walking – what do you think they were like in the past?
- Talk to grandparents about their lives growing up – what was the same? different?
- Visit the library – look in the History section to find out more about life in the past.