The Victorians

A popular unit of study in Key Stage 2 has in the past been the Victorians. It is possible to continue to study the Victorians through either a local study or through a unit of study beyond 1066, although the emphasis now shifts to the Victorians representing a turning point. Given that so much reform and industrial change took place during this period, turning points are not difficult to find. In this section, you will find articles and resources to help you to plan to teach the Victorian period as a turning point. 

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  • Local study: Fulwell Windmill

    Article

    Please note: This article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references may be outdated. The lesson formed part of a local study of Fulwell and Fulwell Windmill in Sunderland. It could also be taught as part of the Victorian Britain Study Unit. The children had already looked at maps and...

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  • Interpretation and poor Victorian Children

    Multipage Article

    Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on the portrayal of poor, Victorian children. While factual knowledge about conditions in workhouses is an essential component of the unit, the main focus is on contrasting portrayals of one fictional Victorian child, Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist. The...

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  • Living Museums and Victorian Britain

    Multipage Article

    Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on ways of portraying life in Victorian Britain. While factual knowledge of aspects of Victorian life in Britain are a vital component of the unit, the main focus is on exploring the way living museums present the period,...

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  • How cruel were the Victorians?

    Multipage Article

    Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum. This unit centres on Victorian crime and punishment. This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and...

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  • The Victorians

    Multipage Article

    The Topic Pack gives you a brief summary of the Victorians.

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  • Victorian Britain and the Victorian World

    Multipage Article

    This E-CPD unit has a number of possible focuses within the broader topic of Victorian Britain and the wider Victorian world.  This follows a pattern that is strong within the structures of the School History Project.  Each sub-topic needs to mirror what is best in history education at primary level, including...

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  • The Poor Law in Nineteenth-century England and Wales

    Article

    Variety rather than uniformity characterised the administration of poor relief in England and Wales, and at no period was this more apparent than in the decades before the national reform of the poor law in 1834. Unprecedented economic and social changes produced severe problems for those responsible for social welfare,...

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  • Victorian Life: Clothes

    Article

    Victorian Life: Clothes by Liz Gogerly. Wayland, 2008; ISBN: 978 0 7502 5368 0 Reviewed by Alf Wilkinson An exploration of Victorian clothes - for rich and poor - for upper KS2 pupils. The text briefly sets the context of the Victorian period, and uses examples of famous people -...

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  • Northamptonshire in a Global Context

    Article

    Produced by the Northamptonshire Black History Association and originally published in 2008, this is one of a set of resources for schools offering a more inclusive map of the past that includes an appreciation of Black History within the local, national and global context. The resources provide a range of opportunities to promote diversity within the curriculum....

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  • Watch making in Victorian Prescot

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and links may be outdated. In this article, Richard Knights describes the background and the making of a short film based around the Prescot watch making industry, starring children from his own Year 5 class. The project, for which he gained...

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  • Planning a Victorian School Day

    Article

    Learning is more engaging and better retained when it is contextualised and when it appeals to a variety of learning styles. How better to bring history alive, than by having it invade children's school environment and transform their everyday experience? Getting away from predominantly auditory learning, the printed word and...

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  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Significant Victorian

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content, references and links may be outdated. For more recent content see our Brunel scheme of work and George Stephenson scheme of work. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) have recently published new Schemes of Work for all subjects. Included within these...

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  • The Great Exhibition

    Article

    ‘Of all the decades to be young in, a wise man would choose the 1850s’ concludes G.M. Young in his Portrait of An Age. His choice is understandable. Historians and contemporaries have long viewed the middle years of the century as a ‘plateau of peace and prosperity’, an ‘age of...

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  • A Project on Working Class Education in the Victorian Period

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. In the third year at London Metropolitan University, history B.ED students research and prepare a resource about an aspect of life in C19th Britain for use with their chosen age group. Nicky made a book,...

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  • Queen Victoria as a Politician

    Article

    Even had Queen Victoria not presided over the achievements of the age which bears her name, her career would still hold a fascination for the historian. She was, for one thing, the solitary woman in a male political world. She was possessed of a personality at once perceptive and simple,...

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  • Reading, recovering and re-visioning Victorian Women

    Article

    Knowledge of the experience of women during Victorian times has developed considerably during the last thirty years. History had a privileged place within the British Women’s Liberation movement in the early 1970s and reclaiming the past was often deliberately intended to establish the kind of legitimating tradition evident in other...

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  • Helping schools discover historic Churches

    Article

    Since 1969 the Churches Conservation Trust has been caring for churches no longer needed for regular worship. The 325 retired churches in its care contain over a thousand years of history, religion, art and architecture to be discovered, investigated and enjoyed by pupils and teachers alike. From Saxon simplicity to...

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  • Queen Victoria's visit to Wolverhampton November 30 1866

    Article

    When Prince Albert died in 1861 Queen Victoria went into deep mourning and ceased all public duties. By 1866 she had still not made any public appearances. Wolverhampton, like many other towns, raised a subscription to commission a statue in Albert’s memory. Queen Victoria was consulted and she asked for...

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  • Stories to extend and support the study of life in Victorian Times

    Article

    The study of life in Victorian Times with Key Stage 2 pupils, or aspects of life beyond living memory (now ‘the more distant past’) with children in Key Stage 1 is surely one of the richest and most popular historical themes. Some books come immediately to mind. Charles Dickens’ Oliver...

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