There are 4 separate ways of approaching this topic, each becoming increasingly more ambitious. Stage 1 only is featured below. Stages 2 and 4 are suggestions using your own local resources. There are no resources for these.
Stage 1
Featured here, for younger children needing some structured support and working with census details for just one family.
Stage 2
Working with a few households, from another census, comparing ‘then and now’ from a fashionable London street where houses are now cost £7million. But who lived there 100 year ago and were these Victorians as rich?? Pupils investigate with a little guidance. This lesson is based on an interactive facility on the National Archives’ site.
Stage 3
Children search a pre-prepared database to look for patterns and to test hypotheses e.g. the most popular job, the age children started and finished school, life expectancy. .
Stage 4
Pupils use a census from their own locality to create and interrogate their own database. I give advice on how to structure this
Stage 1: Can we use a census to solve the mystery of the famous family in the photo?
Step 1
Start by introducing a mystery. Children may be familiar with the
