The Workhouse Comes to Year 5!

On Tuesday 16th February, Mr Webster came into our classroom and told us that he was going to turn our classroom into a workhouse. He shut all the blinds and we had to sit in silence and count porridge oats. He told us that if we talked then we would not be given anything to eat for 24 hours! We had our hands inspected and if they were not clean we had to do extra chores. Ms Sokoni was fired because she was not doing her job properly! Of course this was all just pretend. The reason that he did this was to show us what life in the workhouse would have been like for children back in the beginning of the Victorian period, before school became compulsory. It was a good way of showing us how children would have been treated. We felt as if our rights had been taken away from us and we did not like how strict our master (Mr Webster) was. It was also very boring. We are looking forward to exploring how the lives have changed for the better in the coming weeks.