We have just returned from a two-day visit to a school in Kent. It was an enjoyable couple of days and we did a lesson with every class in the school. We go all over the country on these visits travelling over 200 miles to some of them. The journey can be quite tiring and then each day is filled with activity, but without doubt it is one of the highlights of our Victorian work. School visits seem to be a bit like buses, they come along at the same time, and oddly enough they also seem to group together in areas. Of course there are not many weeks left until the Summer break, but there is still time for a couple more bookings. We already have one in hand to Essex, another 200 mile jaunt!

We have now recruited some models for our website and we are so thrilled to have some very pretty Victorian girls who will soon be appearing on the website. We have been having more difficulty finding a Victorian urchin, the boys seem a little more reticent, but we have found one who has had his arm twisted and agreed to model, so he should be appearing on the website after the next photoshoot. We were fortunate in being allowed to use the playground of our local school which is a Victorian building in the shadow of Dunster castle. Next time we want to do an indoor shoot if I can manage to find some suitable props. In particular I want to find an old school desk. I've had one on my shopping list for some time, but acquiring artefacts and props is difficult, taking a lot of time to track down, and sometimes costing lots of money. We may have to improvise. I want to make some of the photographs available for free download so that schools can use them in their projects and so on. I am also working on acquiring and making available a number of real Victorian photographs for downloading, which again would be ideal for use in school projects as they will be copyright cleared. Then finally on the subject of pictures I am awaiting the first few illustrations from our new artist, and that will give us even more resources for various purposes.

There's not so much in the way of new products on the website this month, but there are a lot which I am hoping to get listed soon, when I am not so busy with school visits. We've just had some new toys in, which are ready for sale, and we have taken delivery of the first consignment of our range of traditional toys from the toymaker. These need packaging, and sheets of instructions have to be prepared, but I know they will be very popular. We are hoping to be able to make some of them available at a low enough price for schools to be able to use them in lessons. I think it is rather appealing for children to make their own simple toys much as they would have done in the past.

We had an interesting enquiry from the website this month that I thought I'd share with you as I am not entirely sure of the answer myself. We get a number of queries each month, some easy to answer and the odd one quite difficult. This question, from someone in Canada, asked when individual school reports began. I am fairly sure that they did not exist in Victorian times, although they certainly had class or school reports by the School Inspectors, but the earliest reference I can find to individual school reports dates back to the early 1900s, just into the Edwardian period. I wonder if any reader can shed any further light on this interesting question.

Until next time.

Regards

Stephen Clark

The Victorian Headmaster