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School in the 1940s

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Black and white photo of children in classroom
School in the 1940s

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  F–2


Imagine going to school in the 'olden days' (the 1940s).

Find out what morning assembly looked like.

Discover the things that children kept in their desks and what they used to do their writing.

This clip shows you what school was like in the past as two adults (actors Terry Norris and Carmel Millhouse) remember what they did at school.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Have you ever asked a grandparent what it was like for them at school? How do you think school would be different if they went to school today?
  2. 2.What are the children carrying as they get off the bus? What things are the very young children doing at school? What were the holes for in the old school desks? What sort of pens did the students use? What things were kept in the desks?
  3. 3.What things about school in the clip are different today? What things are still the same today? Why do you think schools have changed over time? Talk to an older person about school. What questions could you ask them to find out more about school in the past?
  4. 4.Make a comic strip or cartoon story about a day at school in the past. In your story, include arriving at school, moving to class and working at desks. Draw all the things you see and use in a day at school that were not around when people much older than you were at school.



Date of broadcast: 1973


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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History Education