Year 3 Coal Mining trip

Lesson: History

Class: Year 3 Year: 2016 - 2017

Year 3 had an amazing time at Astley Coal Mining Museum and experienced what the smells and sights would have been whilst working within a colliery. The museum holds the largest coal mining wheel in the world and is still working today. We used our amazing sketching skills to record the sights such as coal trucks, machinery and models of Pit Ponies. Our guide for the morning, Darren, gave informative talks about where coal comes from, the roles of workers down the mines and the dangers down the mines. We also found out about mining disasters, the pay for the workers and how children were used down the mines. Finally, Darren, a blacksmith, gave a demonstration of his smithing skills as we watched a piece of iron be turned into a fire poker. He then presented it as a gift for us to take back to school. 

We then travelled to The Dream. This is a sculpture that sits on the former site of Sutton Manor Colliery. We used our knowledge from Astley to imagine what the site would have been like when it was a working mine. We read information at the site to learn about the artist, the history of the sculpture and why it was positioned here.