“VERY strict” was the comment of one school pupil who had gone back to Victorian times for the day.

Studying the Victorians this term, everyone in the middle classes, classes three and four at Yeoford Primary School, had managed to find suitable costumes to wear for the day, as did their teachers.

Comments from the pupils included the discovery that if you fidgeted, you had to write out lines 10 times, and if you pushed it too far, there was the threat of the cane.

Making ink blots on the paper was not a good idea either, although they also used “slates” made from thick black paper with chalk for writing.

To make it more authentic, the pupils’ tables had been turned around so that they did not face the modern white board but instead were looking at the blackboards.

A dunce’s cap had been made, and just for the day, plastic bags and boxes were banned for any packed lunches which, instead, were in baskets or wrapped in cloth.

They were allowed to look through an enormous old family Bible with the spaces for the family tree and the family portrait gallery.

After half-term they will be looking at Victorian inventors and designers such as William Morris, then making wallpaper in his style.

All in all, it seemed the pupils would rather not go that far back in time for too long.

Sue Read