17 November 2022
Danielle and Kirsty time travelled Year 4 to the Victorian era this term in the form of a Victorian prison workshop for Year 4 in the Sports Hall. After learning the Victorians had put a lot of money and resources into new prisons in place of capital punishment, the boys wondered how this deterred people from committing crimes in the same way capital punishment had. Year 4 were marched down to the hall where they took part in some of the activities Victorian prison inmates would have done. These included: picking the oakam, stepping on the ‘treadwheel’ (in our case a bench), shot drill, solitary confinement and turning the crank. They even got a chance to be a stern prison guard, ensuring the inmates worked at full capacity and at the pace they wanted. The workshop led to super discussions on why the Victorians were so stern with prisoners and comparisons to punishments from previous time eras we have studied.
