How a Nuffield lesson has been used

Teacher Eric Critchley used the Nuffield Primary History lessons described in Down the Mine with his Year 6 class.

For these older children he focused particularly on the motivations of the mine-owners (e.g. how Mr Akenshaw in the story concealed the true facts from the commissioner); and on the differing perspectives of adults like the mine steward and children like Fanny Drake. The children also discussed in depth the feelings of the child workers and Victorian attitudes to child labour compared with our own in Britain today.

The class also carried out a physical experiment, loading and pulling a 'corf' - the class trolley - with 174 kilograms of weights and books, the same weight as the coal hauled by child mineworkers. With due attention to health and safety, the children tried to pull the trolley across the playground for 200 metres. This was the distance corves were often pulled in Victorian mines (see photograph below). After this session Eric commented:

"The children were amazed by the weight involved and their own inability to move it effectively. They were doubly amazed by the ability of Victorian children to move it. This was further compounded by the fact that Victorian children moved up to twenty corves per day, whilst being sick, malnourished and demoralised in many cases. This really rocked our modern children's feelings of superiority over the Victorian children."

Pupils pulling a corf across the playground