Schools Education

There are a variety of visit options available from the Educational Service at Kew Bridge Steam Museum. Our core programmes, listed below, are aimed at providing an individually tailored visit to a specific class or group, thus offering a flexible approach to school visits. Although the visits are specific they fall within these broad themes A limited water supply meant that a household Ùs washing was often done once a week. There were many chores that had to be done as part of the washing process and your pupils will fiind out about a typical washing day in Victorian life

and how it was different for rich and poor. With some comparison between Victorians and modern life. This session focuses on the child labour force in Victorian coal mines. Coal was needed for fuel in many industries, water supply being one of them. The pupils take part in some role-play to explore the typs of jobs that children performed in the mines. During this session pupils will learn about how engines, like those at the museum, were created to solve a problem with drainage in mines.

and how they were used for pumping water in London. Pupils investigate the different ways of pumping water and the difference that the power of the steam engine made to mining and water supply. As part of this sesion we introduce important characters such as Thomas New commen and James Watt. Your class will learn about water filtration, build their own version of a Victorian filter bed and try to filter samples of water. They will also look at solids and dissolving in water.

We discuss the difference between clean and pure water. Following the morning of three of the above four core sessions, the afternoon will consist of three shorter sessions each lasting approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. When choosing either of these sessions, teachers are restricted to choosing two to three, depending on whether they choose one or both of these following sessions, of the core sessions as part of the visit. These sessions will fill a whole day visit and so the normal afternoon sessions are dropped except for the shop.