Wear, what, when
Marks & Spencer is helping locked-down children learn about science and history – and the online games are sure to spark memories for parents and grandparents. Stephanie Smith reports.
It has been said, many times, that the real history of the human race lies in ordinary people doing ordinary things. For more than 130 years, Marks & Spencer has been helping ordinary people do ordinary things – and do them better – ever since Michael Marks opened a market stall in 1884 at Kirkgate Market in Leeds. Ten years later, he partnered with accountant Tom Spencer – and the rest, as they say, is history.
That history is our history, the fabric of our daily lives, the timeline of how we shop, cook, clothe and clean ourselves and our homes, reflecting our changing needs and aspirations. All of this is brought to life in the M&S Company Archive, based at the University of Leeds. Currently closed to the public in lockdown, it has been working with teachers to create a series of online learning resources so that schoolchildren can learn about the history and science of clothes and food, using the archive exhibits and resources.
For example, an online game challenges children to match the clothes to the period of history, from 1930s knitted swimwear to a 1980s snow-washed double-denim jacket and jeans (what were we thinking?).
“Anyone can enjoy it,” says education and outreach officer Caroline Bunce. “You have got to have a little bit of knowledge about the different eras and a notion of what sort of items might have been around at what time. It’s a good learning resource to create that curiosity around how fashion has changed and why, but also for adults to test their knowledge.”
The quiz is just one of a series of lessons M&S has developed to help schoolchildren learn in a fun and engaging way while tying in with the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1-4.
M&S’s long-standing contribution to fashion, food and home innovations plays a key role. “In the late ’50s all the new manmade fabrics came in and there was great excitement about the practicality of them and how labour-saving they were,” says Caroline.
“Suddenly, washday was no longer a huge laborious task because these
premises. “It’s an acceleration of what we were planning to do anyway, which is make the workshops something that any teacher, anywhere, could access, rather than just those who could get themselves physically to the archive in Leeds,” she says.
There are teachers’ notes, slides and activity sheets, and also some distilled At Home resources for parents, carers and young people to access directly. One activity sends youngsters rushing off to find different fabrics in their home, while another asks them to find different sorts of food packaging from their cupboards. “You are not just sitting and staring at a screen – you are actually going off and finding stuff and interpreting it and being inspired by it,” says Caroline.
What’s On My Plate is a history resource that looks back at how food has changed over 100 years. “They are looking for things that have stayed the same and things that have changed in food and how we eat,” adds Caroline. “Some things don’t change and it’s interesting to think about why that is and how that reflects society.”
Fabric and Fashion is a science-based resource linked to the primary science curriculum, looking at the properties of different materials and their different applications. “The young people do a series of tests to decide which fabric would be most suitable for particular types of clothing. As an example, we use swimwear and tree-climbing trousers. The pupils have to invent a garment for the future – so if they want to think about life on Mars or living underwater, what would your clothes have to do for you?
“What our collection brings is a really strong connection to everyday life. It’s a social history collection so the resources make familiar objects a little bit extraordinary.”
■ The Marks & Spencer schools online learning resources are at www. marksintime.marksandspencer. com/schools