PUBLISHED 18 June 2021
Year 2 have today enjoyed a great trip out to reinforce their recent learning about Victorian seaside holidays. In class pupils were fascinated and a little shocked to hear about people only having one weeks holiday a year and the fact that children as young as six would often work six days a week in difficult jobs. They looked at transport, accommodation and entertainment on a seaside holiday in the past, with things such as bathing machines, penny licks and Punch and Judy sounding very different from our holidays.
Today, they walked along the beach from Fairhaven and discussed how the landscape had changed from sand to salt marsh, explaining how the change in tides had caused this. They discussed coastal erosion and deposition and tried to work out how parts of the beach had more pebbles than others.
They then walked along to the pier and discussed how it was now much lower and why this had happened, also that it had originally been much longer with more entertainment on it for the Victorian seasiders.
After lunch, they then walked back through the Victorian ornamental gardens where they looked at features such as the bandstand, the fountain, and the shelter as well as looking at the layout of the actual planting, which is a very typical Victorian design. They stopped to look at the pebble pictures on the bridge and the patterns on the walls of the Grand Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in St Annes after the demolition of the Majestic.
The children were full of questions and remembered many facts that they had learnt in history. As a reward for great learning and superb behaviour they all enjoyed an ice lolly to cool down as a treat.
Well done Year 2, a great day out.