Interviewing an Ex Miner

Crew Hamill and Crew Wilkinson were visited by an ex-miner who came to share his detailed experiences of working within the British coal mines. He shared moments of joy and camaraderie with his workers and stories of tragedy when accidents occurred. We were engrossed in his experiences and through this process, we developed a deeper understanding of how more modern mines operated and what a day in the life of a miner was like. Afterwards, the children had many prepared questions to ask to ensure that we got the most from the experience and allowed us to embed our understanding.

You can listen to the interview if you follow this QR code.

Dangers in The Mine

Crew Hamill deepened their understanding on the early conditions of the mine from last lesson by exploring the dangers that people faced due to these conditions. To begin with, we looked at some artefacts that would have been used within the mine (helmet, gloves, pickaxe etc.) and discussed what these told us about working in a mine (e.g you could hit your head, get blisters on your hands, be injured by the pickaxe). We then worked in mini crews to create freeze frames of some mining situations that all involved a danger. Can you guess what these are from our photos?

Following this, we worked in threes to conduct interviews in which one of us was a miner in a given scenario and the others asked questions about the dangers. You can see some of our interviews here:

To consolidate our learning, we created a ‘wall of dangers’ by each writing a danger on a brick.

Early Conditions in the Mine

During today’s lesson, Crew Hamill had the opportunity to experience a mining tunnel for themselves. Using tables and dark material, we recreated what a tunnel might look like. We turned out the lights to make things darker and played a coal mine soundscape to mimic the sounds of the mine. One at a time, we made our way through the tunnel, experiencing the dark, cramped and noisy conditions. We then had a small debrief explaining how we felt – lots of us were claustrophobic! Following this, we played true or false and moved to the side of the room that we felt was appropriate when presented with different facts about mining. If we agreed and thought they were true we went to one side, if we disagreed and thought they were false then we went to the other. To further demonstrate our learning, we read some fact sheets about life in the mine and created chotting sheets in mini crews that detailed the early conditions. 

Changes in the Mining Industry

Crew Hamill have delved deeper into the mining industry and had a look at some of the main changes that have occurred since mining began. We worked in pairs to match the important events to a picture that illustrated them. Once we’d done this, we worked together to order them in chronological order. We discussed whether these changes were social, technological or political and discussed why these events were so important. For example, in the 1980s, lots of miners went on strike to fight for better pay.

Interview Prep

As part of their expedition, Crew Hamill will be interviewing an ex miner in order to find out a little bit more about the experiences they had when working in the mines. In preparation for this, we worked in mini crews to chot some ideas for the questions we’d like to ask. We then worked as a crew to put our ideas together and generate a final list of questions which we will be asking on Friday.

Crowning the King and Queen of Carcroft

On Wednesday we continued our first case study all about King Charles III. We learnt that he became King of England after the death of his mother and that he had a ceremony called a coronation.

We then decided to hold our own coronation to celebrate the King and Queen of Carcroft. We even had trumpet players, the Prince of Wales and finished with a rendition of the National Anthem!

Strike, strike, strike!!

Crew Hamill and Crew Wilkinson had so much fun causing a little mischief on the streets of Carcroft whilst taking part in our very own strike. We showed a united front whilst fighting for what we believe in – a school with no uniform and a 4 day school week (no Fridays!!).

Thank you to everyone who cheered us on when they saw us and to those who gave us a beep of their horn!

Let’s STRIKE!

To hook us into our learning, we are going on STRIKE! Today, we have learnt all about the coal mine strikes and the reasonings as to why these took place. We were shocked to find out that 142,000 people actually went on strike when Margaret Thatcher tried to close 20 mines in 1984. Did you know that people who didn’t go on strike were called scabs?! Inspired by what we have learnt, we are planning our own strike! We have decided that the school week should always be a 4 day week and that we shouldn’t have to come to school on Fridays. This afternoon, we have designed and created placards which we are going to use when we go on strike later in the week. Keep your eyes peeled – we may just march past your house!

Case Study Reflection

To end Case Study 1, Crew Hamill worked together to consolidate all of our learning from the last 5 weeks. We worked together to create a mind map of all of the key elements of our expedition and how they helped us to answer the guiding question.

Once we had done this, we used this information to complete our case study reflection, answering our guiding question: How Can One Moment Influence Out Future.