lnf.cymru stimulus sheet · Humanities · Year 2
Invented for this lesson: Taid Gwyn, his teacher Miss Owen, his friends and his village school. The photo is a drawing, not a real photograph. Real: the 1950s details. Wooden desks with inkwell holes, dip pens, blackboards and chalk, free bottles of school milk and playground games were common in Welsh schools then, and some village schools had a stove in the classroom and toilets outside across the yard.
Show page 1 (the photo) on the board, or print one per table. Print pages 2 and 3 (Taid’s answer cards) one set between two and cut along the dashed lines; if you cannot cut them, pairs share the uncut sheets. In Step 6 you read the cards aloud as Taid; in Step 7 one pupil in each pair is Taid and reads them.
Taid Gwyn started school in September 1958, aged 5, so he was born in 1953. His village is in Gwynedd, North Wales. (The county was not called Gwynedd until 1974, but the place is the same.) If a pupil asks something no card answers, Taid says: “I don’t remember that. Ask me another question!”
Taid Gwyn’s class at the village school, 1958. (A drawing made for this lesson.)
Read the question, then read Taid’s answer in a friendly voice.
“I started school in September 1958, when I was 5 years old. That is around 70 years ago!”
“My teacher was Miss Owen. She was kind, but strict. When a visitor came in, we all stood up and said good morning.”
“When I was little, I wrote with a pencil. When I was older, I used a dip pen. I dipped it in ink, in a little pot called an inkwell. I often made ink blots!”
“We sat at wooden desks in straight rows, 2 children at each desk. Each desk had a hole for the inkwell. The lid lifted up, and our books went inside.”
“Miss Owen wrote on a big blackboard with white chalk. There were no computers and no screens in our school.”
“There was a big stove in the corner, with a tall pipe going up through the roof. It burned coke, a fuel made from coal. A metal guard stopped us touching it.”
“Every child had a little bottle of milk. It was free. Each bottle held one third of a pint. We drank it with a straw.”
“In the yard we played hopscotch, marbles and skipping. We drew the hopscotch squares on the ground with chalk.”
“The toilets were outside, across the yard. In winter it was very cold going out there!”
“I walked to school with my friends. Not many families had a car in those days.”
“My best friends were Elin and Dafydd. We played marbles together every day.”
“I liked story time best. At the end of the day, Miss Owen read us a story. I did not like the cold toilets!”