Tiverton Museum Trip

Due to an outbreak of Covid in school, Class 2 had to postpone this term’s trip to Tiverton Museum so the class were especially delighted to be able to finally go on this visit on 8th March – and it was well worth the wait! On arrival, the children were met by the Museum’s education officer, Kate Evans, who took them through to the education room. The group divided in half and one group dressed up to experience what life would be like in a Victorian school, while the other group completed a trail, locating answers to questions about farming in Victorian times. After the two groups had swapped over and had a short snack break, they undertook two further workshops In one of these, they investigated the life of the local Victorian textile factory owner John Heathcote and found out more about the mechanisation of the local lace industry in the late 19th Century. In the other, the children compared some of the objects found in a Victorian kitchen to those found in later kitchens. They also had a chance to complete a range of practical learning activities: matching labels to objects found in a Victorian kitchen; sequencing the stages of butter-making in a Victorian kitchen and making a ‘rag-rug’. After that, the children explored some of the other Victorian artefacts found in the museum. Some of the children in Years 5 and 6 particularly liked the display of toys and games through the ages and noticed that the toys and games from the Victorian period were largely made of wood, metal or china, while the later toys included a lot of plastic.

Finally, the children thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to explore and role-play what it would be like to be the driver of a Victorian steam engine – without all the heat of an actual fire, of course! As well as learning lots of new vocabulary (such as identifying a mangle, posser, washboard and washing dolly) and seeing and handling lots of Victorian artefacts, the children especially enjoyed the opportunity to learn through role-play in the steam engine hub and Victorian school. They dressed up, wrote on slates and chanted times tables, as well as exploring the rues – and punishments! The children found the Victorian back-board very uncomfortable and they were none too impressed with the cane either!