The class of 1895

PICK DAY

BBC2, 8pm YOUR time at school is meant to be the best days of your life.

And we might each think that our own era was the best of the lot – in terms of the classes, dinners, toys, uniform, technology, discos and playtimes. But now a group of 21st century pupils and teachers have agreed to take on an epic time-travelling experiment, and put themselves through school in seven iconic eras.

Everything will be authentic to the time, from what they wore and ate to what they studied. And, presented by Sara Cox, this series starts in 1895, the year when the government introduced secondary school for all.

The kids are put through what Victorians would have experienced – minus the caning and being sent up chimneys.

But they do still have to work for several hours a day on top of lessons, with a diet of bread and dripping. As they pass through to the Edwardian era and 1914, the boys experience rifle shooting lessons, while the girls learn housewifery and needlework. Which, as dull and sexist as it sounds, some of the girls insist is still preferable to double maths.

The pupils are shocked by the racism that was taught in the classroom every day, under the guise of colonial geography, and are horrified to see one lefthanded lad have his arm strapped up to ‘teach’ him to write properly.

And while they might miss their mobile phones at first, they soon get into the swing of things.