Week 11 - Shire Hall
We had a fantastic trip to Shire Hall and the children behaved amazingly, participated in all of our activities and had a lot of fun!
First we spent some time in the classroom there looking at different sources of information to find out all we could about 7 year old Harry Parker. We looked at newspaper cuttings, the prison records, his photograph and some artefacts that would have been in use at the time. Harry was tried in the court at Shire Hall for arson, setting a barn or stable on fire. A police officer found his boot imprint at the scene. We learnt that he was sentenced to 10 days in prison and then 5 years in a reform school.
After learning about Harry we had a snack before the year 1s made peg dolls and the year 2s had a tour around the museum holding cells and court room. The children were able to go into the cells to see what it might have felt like to be in there, in the dark and cold, alone and awaiting trial. Not very nice.....
The peg dolls were made out of wooden clothes pegs and scraps of fabric and wool. The children were really creative in how they made them and had lots of ideas.
Finally we were able to come back to school for lunch!
All of the children said they had enjoyed their trip out and learnt a lot about the life of a child from 150 years ago. It is always good to visit Shire Hall and learn from their amazing resources.
