Children and satchels, by Lisel Haas

Description:With growing industrialisation in the 1800s employers required a more numerate and more literate workforce than before. The work of humanitarian reformers led to laws being passed to prevent the employment of very young children in factories and to keep children of all classes in school for most of their childhood. As well as teaching children to read and write, schools set about instilling the culture and attitudes of the dominant middle class. Mass schooling was based on learning information by heart. Emphasis was placed on the four Rs – reading, [w]riting, [a]rithmatic and recitation (reciting from memory a piece learnt by heart).

All schools, regardless of size or religious denomination, offered a different curriculum and timetable for girls, emphasising needlework rather than academic work. Inside the classroom the timetable, the clock and the bell regulated work. In the 20th century more progressive methods of teaching were developed which were more child-centred. These developments were accompanied by a greater investment in children’s well being. Children were being recognised as the nation’s future.