Victorian Day

To celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birthday, we celebrated this year's book week based on 

one of his classics. 'Oliver Twist'. All the chidlren throughout school took part in a project based on the book which including drama, a debate over workshouses, character descriptions and a Victorian day in school - enjoyed by all children and teachers!

As part of the Victorian day, an actor visited the school and spoke to all the children about life in the Victoria times. Here is an article from our school newsletter, written by our roving reporters, regarding his visit.

Actor Visit By Tom H and Isaac H

As part of Victorian Day, an actor called Mr Davis came to visit our school. In assembly he talked to us about the life of Charles Dickens. It turned out that after moving from Portsmouth to Chatham, his father was sent to prison for debt along with the rest of his family. Later on in his life he wrote a book called “Little Dorrit” which explains what it was like to work at a blacking factory putting labels on tins. He then got a job writing cartoons for newspapers under the name of Boz. After that Mr Davis got us to act out a scene from Oliver Twist. He told us how Oliver picked the short straw and was dared to go up to Mr Bumble and ask for more gruel. Later on in the day the actor came round the school to do individual workshops. Mr Davis pretended to be Fagin and we could ask him questions.

“Why do you get children to do your dirty work?” asked one child asked. Fagin replied that his hands
were still quick but his legs were far too slow!

Have a look in our gallery for some further photos of our learning based on Oliver Twist and our Victorian day!