Crime and Punishment Session Information

 This session is most suited to Upper Key Stage 2 and can be taught as:

• as outreach in your school 

Outreach Day at School:

• Introduction
• This session focuses on the period 1750 – 1900 and encourages the children to use their critical thinking skills when learning about the past. We show the children how to be historians using some primary sources from the university’s archives and special collections to find out:

The sort of crimes that you could have been sent to prison for.

The reform of the prisons and what changed.

The reform of the legal system and how it works.

We focus on four sources – a letter from debtors in Durham prison writing to George III; a calendar of punishments from the assize courts in Durham in 1783 and two reports published by different prison reformers about the Durham prisons.

• Using the 1820 plan of Durham Prison, the children reflect on the features that John Howard, Elizabeth Fry and Joseph Gurney said were important and find out if their recommendations were implemented or not.

Need to know:

• This is a half-day session.
• Timings for your session will vary depending on whether the team is delivering in more than one school on that day. For a morning slot teaching will begin at either 9.30am or 10am and for the afternoon, 1pm. The exact times will be on the confirmation email which you will receive once you have booked your session.
• We can teach up to two classes on the same day for a half-day outreach session (one in the morning and one in the afternoon).
• The cost for half day outreach is £3 per pupil, with an additional flat rate charge of £20 towards transport costs.

National Curriculum Link:

History - Key Stage 2: A study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils historical knowledge beyond 1066.

Develop a chronologically secure knowledge.

Use of historical terms.

Understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources.

Address and devise historically valid questions.

Construct informed responses.

Session costs