Work was painted by Ford Madox Brown between 1852 and 1865 and is a great painting to use as part of a project on the Victorians.
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What could you do with it:

1. As part of a hook into leaning cut the painting up and bury pieces of the painting in sand. Ask the children to be archaeologists and uncover the findings using a paintbrush. A great way to start discussion, raise questions and get an idea of what the children might already know about Victorian life. You might not want to give them the whole painting – maybe just sections of it. This could also offer opportunities to discuss the importance of archology and preserving historical artefacts.
2. There is so much going on in this painting it is bursting with life, so why not bring it to life. Create tableaus of the painting with the children in role as the people in the painting. You could add junk percussion to this and create a sound scape of what is going on in the street. Looking at the sights and sounds that would have been heard in this street.
3. The Victorian period was well known for its massive social divides. Work offers great opportunities to begin to examine this on a very simple level. It allows the children to use any previous knowledge to infer which ‘characters’ belong to which social groups and how they know this.
4. Get closer. You could focus on a small section of the painting. This could offer great opportunities for drama and writing. You could choose to focus on the two men at the side in deep conversation and develop a dialogue. You could look at the small child in the red dress carrying a baby – what is their story? This story in particular offers a world of opportunities including looking the life of children in the Victorian period.
5. This painting offers a great insight into Victorian dress for the different classes. Children could use this as a starting point into the studies on costume. They could look at creating textile patters, dying textiles with natural dyes and sewing into these. They could use paper, masking tape and a mannequin to construct Victorian costumes. They could even look at millinery and design and make different hats that might have been worn for a range of people in Victorian society.

These are only 5 simple ideas that could extend out. There is a half terms worth of work which could be done centred around this painting and there are so many paintings which offer similar opportunities. So lets get art and paintings back into our classrooms.

Sophie Merrill

@MissSMerrill 

Managing behaviour is more than crowd control and the term behaviour management almost suggests managing/controlling those ‘key characters’ that we have all met throughout our careers. Those kids that see you as you walk through the door keen and eager to make an impact on your new class; meanwhile they are just thinking – yay, fresh meat!
For me behaviour management isn’t about what you do when Bobby decides to kick off because someone looked at him, or how you calm Stacey down from the endless arguments she has been having with the other children in the year group. It’s about setting out your stall. Setting up an environment that allows all children to be safe and flourish in their learning.
So what is my advice?
1.  Be consistent – follow through with what you say.
If you say the children will stay in at break if work is not completed – do it! The moment the children see a chink in the armour that’s it – you are done for!
 
2.  Know your children. Know what makes them tick. Set up the classroom to avoid issues where consequences are needed.
If you know that Ahmed and Tom are best mates and make each other giddy as kippers, sitting them together is probably a bad idea. Think about having carpet places and arrange your seating plan so that certain children are not in eye line of each other. Also think who needs to be at the back – no one to turn around and distract.
 
3.  Make children invested in the classroom and learning. Think about rewards that they will want to earn.
First of all, tap into what they want to learn. Make them so interested in the theme/ topic they are working on that being off task won’t be an issue. Secondly think about what your children will want as a reward. I heard Sue Cowley speak about this at Northern Rocks last year and she is spot on. Not every child will want a reward of going out for basketball or lego time. Don’t force what you want/think is easy to facilitate.  
 
4. Never underestimate the power of a phone call or text message home.
They can mean the world.Parent power is the best tool in a teacher’s kit. If you have a good relationship with the parents you have already won half the battle.
 
5.  Surprise rewards. Treating them when they don’t expect it. Not as a carrot but just because. It shows you care.
I have done this many times. I know this goes against the healthy schools thing but one of my favourite things to do involve a pack of custard creams.  The children would be working away and I would out of the blue offer a biscuit to each child totally at random.  Who doesn’t love a custard cream?!
 
6.  Use humour to defuse situations – this is invaluable especially in year 6. Never underestimate the power of banter.
Again – this ties in to knowing your children. Sometimes a joke or a quiet word will get a child back on track far more effectively that the hair dryer treatment.
 
7.  Have high expectations – don’t lower them. Set things in place when expectations are or are not met.
Don’t be afraid to show you mean business. If the children are not producing enough work/complete work to standard, hold them accountable - whether it’s a chat with parents or keeping them in to rectify this.
 
8.  Change systems if needed. Don’t set children up to fail. Make the system fit the child not the child fit the system.
Don’t be afraid to set up individualised plans for those children that the system doesn’t work for. There might be any number of reasons for this but by continuing to make them fit the system we are setting them up to fail. Think about smart simple achievable targets. Involving the child in this is key. They have to understand how they can correct their behaviour and should be involved in choosing their incentive for doing so.  This will also need reviewing on regular occasions.
 
9.  Don’t squash big personalities Get them to work with you rather than against.
I must admit I am one of those teachers that love a big personality; they often bring humour and those magic moments to the classroom that you remember for the rest of your career. Go with the personality rather than try to stifle it.
 
10.  Quiet reading/guided reading straight after lunch defuses lunchtime issues.We all know that you can have a lovely calm focused class out for lunch and then pick up a class that are swinging from the light fittings after an hour running around outside, arguing over who fouled who in football or whose turn it is to play hockey and that’s before we have even mentioned the year 6 constant falling out and bickering that goes on. Setting up guided reading as soon as they come in defuses any lunch time issues. It calms things down and resets the tone for learning.

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I am aware that this may have an element of teaching some to suck eggs. I am also aware that how you manage your classroom is very personal and not everyone will agree with my approach. Let’s also not forget, what works for one teacher might not work for another. This is more me expanding on some of my tweets last night and being reflective on my own practice, after all if we don’t do this how do we grow professionally? Which is why chats like #PrimaryRocks are so great. They build communities. Communities where we can share, reflect and discuss everyday efforts in our classrooms.
 
Sophie Merrill
@MissSMerrill