Experience all the fun and excitement of a day out at the seaside in Victorian times without leaving your classroom. We’ve selected some of our favourite Victorian photos, posters and prints from The National Archives’ huge collection of images. You’ll find below lots of suggestions for sensory activities that you can easily do in your classroom. They’ll help you use our images as a starting point to bring all the sights, sounds, smells and experiences of the Victorian seaside to life. We recommend you follow the six sections below in order, but you don’t need to use every image or do every suggested activity. Just choose or adapt the ones that are most suitable for your students. There are sensory activities, signed videos, sound files and ideas for further discussion – hopefully something for everybody. You may even come up with some ideas of your own for activities based on our images. If you do, we’d love to hear about them! This resource is suitable for students working from P1 to KS2. P Scale links: English (Speaking and listening) Geography History Music

This session introduces pupils to the ‘archive keep-safe box’, as they discover the different documents and objects inside and what these reveal about a person from the past. Pupils will have the opportunity to re-create a Victorian photograph by trying on replica costume, as they find out more about the lives of rich and poor children at this time. We will take pictures of the pupils in their costume and insert their image into an original Victorian photograph. You can book this session by going to the National Archives Education website (linked to our shop).