Throughout Autumn, Year 6 have been learning about The Victorians during afternoon curriculum lessons. We have learnt about the Industrial Revolution and the six main reasons for its growth and success during the Victorian period.

We have also researched and written about Victorian inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell who patented the early telephone and Lewis Howard Latimer who worked closely with Bell. We spent time researching and debating the question - were all Victorian inventors white men?  The answer is no! We learnt about Marie Van Brittan Brown who invented the first home security system; Madam C. J. Walker (the first self-made female millionaire) who made her fortune selling hair products and Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose who invented the first printing press machine. 

     Marie Van Brittan Brown                 Madam C.J.Walker                   Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose

We have learnt about The Crystal Palace which housed over 100,000 items and received more than six million visitors whilst it was open. 

We also took a virtual tour of The Crystal Palace during the Great Exhibition which was fascinating to 'see' all the exhibits and get a feel for what it would have been like to visit it. If you would like to take the tour, please use the link below:

https://www.seymourlerhn.com/royalparks/greatexhibition/ 

During Autumn two, we researched and discovered information about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his breakthrough inventions such as The Great Western Railway. 

The Victorians were talented and ambitious.  They, like other European countries, were also empire builders.  We studied The British Empire, how it expanded over the course of Queen Victoria's reign and debated the question: Was Britain right to colonise so much of the world? 

We also studied the United Nations Rights of the Child act and considered how children's rights in the UK can sadly be different from other children's rights around the world. We also compared our rights to those of Victorian children.   The link below takes you to The United Nations Rights of the Child Act poster. 

    https://www.cypcs.org.uk/ufiles/Symbols-Poster.pdf

We also learned about the Koh-i-Noor diamond and debated where the precious stone should reside (live).  We found out that the Koh-i-Noor diamond was actually displayed during the Great Exhibition in 1851!    

Throughout our topic, we have continued to build on our knowledge and understanding of the Victorian era in order to know more and remember more. We have created a working wall throughout our topic to help us to achieve our aim of knowing more and remembering more.  After our topic ended, we spent some time in class annotating a copy of our working wall to help us to recall as many facts, memories and experiences as possible. 

                                                              Our Working Wall