RAGGED SCHOOLS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNlnbuG6bE

My next port of call is the Ragged School Museum, which recreates Victorian life in

and around the East End.

At the heart of the museum is the classroom and each year up to 16,000 children come

to experience life in a Victorian school.

Equipped with desks, traditional blackboards and the dreaded cane, the room has been

faithfully recreated as one of Dr. Bernardo’s original classrooms as it would have

appeared when the social reformer arrived from Dublin and set up the first free school

for poor children of the East End.

It’s a really interesting place to visit and I managed to leave without getting any extra

homework.

QUESTIONS

What was Victorian life like?

Why do you think the speaker mentions the ‘dreaded cane’?

Why do you think free schools were set up in the Victorian period?

What is the intention of the speaker when mentioning the ‘extra homework’?