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Year 9 Topic 1
‘Childhood’ Non-Fiction Booklet

Overview

Childhood is a time that many people are fortunate enough to reflect upon fondly
and our time spent as children can often shape us for the rest of our lives. To
complement your study of a modern play text, this booklet will develop your
reading skills for non-fiction texts and enhance your understanding of how the
theme of childhood can be explored across the ages.

Text 1: Finding and retrieving explicit information in texts

(modern website)
Children in the 19th Century

By Tim Lambert
‘SEGMENT AND
SUMMARISE’
The industrial revolution created more demand for female and child
labour. In the early 19th century when children worked in textile
factories they often worked for more than 12 hours a day.

In the early 19th century parliament passed laws to curtail child

labour. However, they all proved to be unenforceable. The first
effective law was passed in 1833. It was effective because for the
first time factory inspectors were appointed to make sure the law
was being obeyed. The new law banned children under 9 from
working in textile factories. It said that children aged 9 to 13 must
not work for more than 12 hours a day or 48 hours a week. Children
aged 13 to 18 must not work for more than 69 hours a week.

Furthermore, nobody under 18 was allowed to work at night (from

8.30 pm to 5.30 am). Children aged 9 to 13 were to be given 2 hours
of education a day.

Conditions in coal mines were also terrible. Children as young as 5

worked underground. In 1842 a law banned children under 10 and
all females from working underground. In 1844 a law banned all
children under 8 from working. Then in 1847, a Factory Act said that
women and children could only work 10 hours a day in textile
factories.

In 1867 the law was extended to all factories. (A factory was defined
as a place where more than 50 people were employed in a
manufacturing process).
In the 19th century, boys were made to climb up chimneys to clean
them. This barbaric practice was ended by law in 1875. Gradually
children were protected by the law more and more.

In the 19th century, families were much larger than today. That was
partly because infant mortality was high. People had many children
and accepted that not all of them would survive.

In the early 19th century, the churches provided schools for poor
children. From 1833 the government provided them with grants.
There were also dame schools. They were run by women who taught
a little reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, many dame
schools were really a childminding service.

The state did not take responsibility for education until 1870.
Forsters Education Act laid down that schools should be provided for
all children. If there were not enough places in existing schools, then
board schools were built. In 1880 school was made compulsory for 5
to 10-year-olds.

However, school was not free, except for the poorest children until
1891 when fees were abolished. In 1893 the minimum age for
leaving school was raised to 11. From 1899 children were required
to go to school until they were 12.

Girls from upper-class families were taught by a governess. Boys

were often sent to public schools like Eton. Middle-class boys went
to grammar schools. Middle-class girls went to private schools where
they were taught ‘accomplishments’ such as music and sewing.

Discipline in Victorian schools was savage. Beatings were common

although in the 19th century the cane generally replaced the birch.
Furthermore, children who were poor at lessons were humiliated by
being forced to wear a cap with the word ‘dunce’ on it.

Before the 19th century children were always dressed like little
adults. In Victorian times the first clothes made especially for
children appeared such as sailor suits.

In the 19th century, middle-class girls played with wood or porcelain

dolls. They also had dollhouses, model shops, and skipping ropes.
Boys played with marbles and toy soldiers as well as toy trains.
(Some toy trains had working engines fuelled by methylated spirits).
They also played with toy boats. However poor children had few
toys and often had to make their own.

In a well-off family, children played with rocking horses and

clockwork toys like moving animals. Clockwork trains were also
popular. So was the jack-in-the-box.

Simple toys like spinning tops were also popular. So were hoops and
games like knucklebones and pick-up sticks in which you had to pick
 up coloured sticks from a pile without disturbing the others. On
Sundays, children often played with toys with religious themes like
Noah’s arks with wooden animals. Children also loved magic
lanterns (slide) shows and puppet shows.

1. How many hours a day would children work for?

2. What happened in 1883? Why didn’t it happen sooner?

3. Why were factory inspectors appointed?

4. What was the maximum weekly working hours for a 13 to 18 year old?

5. Who received two hours of education per day?

6. How old were some children who were sent to work in mines?

7. What happened in 1844?

8. How was a factory defined in the 1867 Factory Act?

9. When was using child chimney sweeps banned?

10. Why were families usually bigger in the 19th century?

11. Who began providing children with an education?

12. What were dame schools?

13. When did the government finally begin taking responsibility for
education?

14. Who was education made compulsory for in 1880?

15. Was education free?

16. In 1899, at what age could a child leave school?

17. Where were upper class boys educated?

18. What were middle class girls taught?

19. How were children disciplined in Victorian schools?

20. Name three toys played with by middle class children.

Text 2: Developing Understanding of Texts (19th Century)

Illustrated Police News

1898
‘SEGMENT AND
SUMMARISE’ From ‘A Fearful State of Things in South Lambeth:
Roughs Rule the Roost’
TERRORISM reigns supreme in Lambeth. For years the organised gangs of
young ruffians who infest the neighbourhood have been getting worse and
worse, until now it is no exaggeration to say that the more respectable
portion of the community go in fear of their lives.

Probably the worst part of Lambeth is the New Cut and the streets
immediately surrounding and it is from here that the pests of South London
are mostly drawn. Sometimes they move about in gangs, dodging the police
from street to street, and at other times go round in twos and threes
waylaying anybody and everybody who looks as if he might have – to use
their own expressive phrase – anything ‘wuth pinchin’.’

A favourite occupation of the younger members of the gangs is to throw

the newspaper placard-boards into the small shops which abound in the
neighbourhood, and then if the shopkeeper dares to say anything he will
probably have a stone put through his window. ‘It never used to be so,’ said
an Oakley Street shopkeeper. ‘I’ve been here thirteen years, but lately the
place is unbearable. In the evening I can’t leave my shop a minute or I
should have things stolen, and I’ve had my windows broken several times,
and I do wish the police could do something to stop it.’

The police, however, are under considerable difficulty and seem almost
powerless. About three years ago the trouble was very bad, but by vigorous
measures it was stamped out, but, like a hardy weed, it has grown again,
and is as vigorous as ever.

From sixteen to twenty-five is the usual age of the Hooligan, and none can
say that during that time he does any appreciable amount of honest work.
He preys by night, and if he comes out of his den during the day he generally
slouches about comparatively harmless; it is after dark that he can be seen
in all his glory. A resident who knows the gang well says:—‘The thing that
would stop them would be the lash. Give it them, just before they come out,
so that their friends can see the effect, and I’ll warrant the outrages will
soon be put a stop to.’ Illustrated Police News,
30 July 1898

1. Recall: What is explicit information in a text?

 2. Vocabulary
Word/Phrase What I think it means What it actually means
Ruffian

Waylaying

‘Wuth pinchin’

Vigorous

Hooligan

Appreciable

3. Retrieval: True or False

Statement Tru Fals

e e
Terrorism is about the same as it always was.
People tend to ignore the gangs.
The New Cut is the worse bit of Lambeth.
The children break windows if someone complains about them.
The police are dealing with it effectively.
The average age of a hooligan is 5-8 years old.
People tend to believe that the children should be punished physically.

4. What are the writer’s criticisms of the gangs and how are
they shown?

Activity 1:

Re-read the text and highlight any words or phrases that are criticisms of the gangs.

Activity 2:
• Complete the table below to show the criticisms the writer makes about the
gangs, supported by quotations from the extract.
• TARGET 9: Then state which criticism is the strongest and why.

Criticism Quotation
TARGET 9: Which criticism is the strongest and why:......................……………….

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5. How does the writer present a negative view of the

teenagers in the article? (AO2)

TASK: Read, re-read and circle.

Identify any words with negative connotations in the text e.g. terrorism.

Definition: Connotations are ideas suggested by words.

Negative words/phrases Connotations

 TARGET 9: Which words create the strongest emotional response. Complete a
‘Diamond 9’.

Text 3: Developing Understanding of Writers’ Viewpoints (21st

Century)
‘You did not act in time’ speech by Greta Thunberg
 April 2019

Getting Started:

 What issues do modern teens face?

 What are people’s views of teenagers today?

 Using the article from The Illustrated News, has this changed over time?

 What about the article is still relevant today?

 What would be your advice to adults in dealing with teenagers?

FREE Write: Teenagers today

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‘SEGMENT AND
SUMMARISE’ ‘You did not act in time’: a speech to MPs at the Houses of Parliament, 23
April 2019
 My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from Sweden. And I
speak on behalf of future generations.
I know many of you don’t want to listen to us – you say we are just children.
But we’re only repeating the message of the united climate science. Many of
you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson time, but I assure
you we will go back to school the moment you start listening to science and
give us a future. Is that really too much to ask?
In the year 2030 I will be 26 years old. My little sister Beata will be 23. Just
like many of your own children or grandchildren. That is a great age, we have
been told. When you have all of your life ahead of you. But I am not so sure it
will be that great for us.
I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to
dream big; I could become whatever I wanted to. I could live wherever I
wanted to. People like me had everything we needed and more. Things our
grandparents could not even dream of. We had everything we could ever wish
for and yet now we may have nothing. Now we probably don’t even have a
future anymore. Because that future was sold so that a small number of
people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us
every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.
You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was
something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are
not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s
too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest
are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.
Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?
During the last six months I have travelled around Europe for hundreds of
hours in trains, electric cars and buses, repeating these life-changing words
over and over again. But no one seems to be talking about it, and nothing has
changed. In fact, the emissions are still rising.
Extract 2: We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood
for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in the society that
you have created. We have not taken to the streets for you to take selfies with
us, and tell us that you really admire what we do.
We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this
for you to put your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis.
We children are doing this because we want our hopes and dreams back.
I hope my microphone was on. I hope you could all hear me.
Greta Thunberg

Activity 1: Retrieval
 List four key facts you learn about Greta Thunberg from the speech.

1. ..........................................................................................................................

2. ..........................................................................................................................

3. ..........................................................................................................................

4. ..........................................................................................................................

Activity 2: Developing Understanding

Look at the following quotations selected from Greta Thunberg’s speech.
For each quotation, discuss with a partner what it suggests or implies. Add all your
ideas and thoughts to the table.

Quotation from the What can be inferred or implied?

speech What is suggested?
‘you say we are just
children’

‘I am not so sure it will

be that great for us’

‘we probably don’t

even have a future
anymore’

‘no one seems to be

talking about it’
 Activity 3: Understanding Persuasive Language

How do we persuade someone?

Technique Example and Effect

Direct address

Rhetorical questions

Repetition

List of three

Superlatives

Anaphora (repetition of a
phrase at the start of
multiple joining sentences)
 Activity 4: Writing about a text

We need to write confidently about a text. Why has a writer chosen specific words
and phrases? What is the intended impact on the audience? How does it, or should
it, make us feel? How can we ensure that we are expressing our ideas about a text in
a clear, concise and well-structured manner?

Firstly, Greta Thunberg has used direct address to make sure her speech
sounds forceful to the people concerned. She
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Self-assessment: Colour-code your answer and edit/redraft it to show where

you need to improve it.
 Text 4: Developing Understanding of Writers’ Viewpoints (21st
Century)
‘A Letter about Ragged Schools’ by Susanna Beever

1853
‘SEGMENT AND
SUMMARISE’
…the poor miserable boys and girls who are brought there are far happier
than they were when running wild about the streets, and it is the very
best thing that could have happened to them. Ask your friends to take you
to see a Ragged School. There you will find poor children who have
nobody at home to take care of them, or to teach them any thing that is
good, boys and girls whose wicked parents teach them to lie and steal,
and to do every thing that is bad, and who beat them if they come home
without having stolen something. How would you like to be thus treated?
or to be turned out of doors on a bitterly cold night, when the nipping frost
benumbed you, or when pitiless snow-storms or pelting rain fell upon you?
You would, I hope, be sorry if even your dog had to stay out on such a
night! But just remember, that when you are going to your nice, warm,
comfortable beds, after having had plenty of food and clothing during the
day, for which I hope you gratefully thank God before lying down to sleep
in peace and comfort at night, that there are hundreds of poor children
who have either no home to go to, or such an one as you would fear to
enter; that many pass the night under arches, or on the steps of doors, or
wherever they can – poor unhappy little beings! Oh! when you pray for
yourselves, and ask God to bless your father and mother, your brothers
and sisters, then do not forget to ask Him also to help the poor outcasts.

Now, Ragged Schools have been set on foot by kind and Christian people
on purpose to do good to these unhappy children. They are brought to
these schools, and there they have their torn, dirty clothes taken off, and
after being washed, and made nice and clean, they have others put on to
wear all day, but at night they are obliged to have their dirty ones put on
again, because their parents are so wicked, that if they went home in
good clothes they would take them from them and sell them, and spend
the money on something to drink. Then they would send the children out
again in miserable and filthy rags, or nearly without clothes at all; so the
kind people at the schools take care of the clean clothing for them at
 night. The children stay at school all day and have food provided for them.
Sometimes they have one thing, sometimes another. The day I was at Dr
Guthrie’s school, they had each a basin of nice hot soup and a good-sized
piece of bread. What a treat for these poor, neglected, hungry things!
Perhaps you, my young friends, never knew what it was to want a morsel
of bread. It is a terrible thing to be very hungry and to have nothing to
eat; a terrible thing to see the shop windows full of nice bread, and cakes,
etc; to be very, very hungry, and to have no means of obtaining any thing
but by stealing.

AO1: Finding and retrieving explicit information from a text.

1. List five things that you learn from the text about the children who attend
ragged schools.

 Use bullet points.

 Don’t just copy large chunks of the text.

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Recall: How do we persuade someone?

List as many ways you can persuade someone as you can remember.
BIG QUESTION: How does the writer create sympathy for the
children who attend Ragged Schools?

Annotating a text
Annotating a text is a very important skill – it enables you to look closely at a writer’s
use of language and structure and consider the choices that they have made.
Let’s look at the text together and see what we notice about the persuasive language
that has been used to encourage the reader to view the children sympathetically.

Evidence from the text How does it create sympathy

(Quotation from the text) (Sensible interpretation)
1

1
0

Self-assessment: Look at the statements and evidence you have used – what mark
would you give yourself out of 10?
How could you improve your answer?

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Text 4: Comparing Texts (AO3)

‘Youngsters addicted to mobile phones’ article from ‘The Daily Mail’ online

2001
SOURCE A: taken from ‘The Daily Mail’ online

Youngsters 'addicted to mobile phones'

The addiction of children to their mobile phones

could threaten the very fabric of society, a study

suggests. Many teenagers are fanatical about

being always available and are extremely uneasy if

unable to contact their friends countless times each day. If the trend continues, young people will soon be
incapable of forming and maintaining relationships without the help of a mobile, the study by a leading
sociologist concludes.

One British child in four between the ages of five and 16 now has a mobile phone. As well as

making calls, youngsters are using their handsets to send millions of text messages to friends each

day. The study's author, Dr Hisao Ishii, said: 'Teenagers can be seen taking advantage of every

spare minute to touch base with their friends. It is not the content of the communication but the act

of staying in touch that matters.' And he warned: 'Genuine conversation will be driven out by

superficial communication, in which the act of contacting one another is all that matters, leading to a

deterioration in the quality of relationships. Indeed, the very fabric of society may be threatened.'

Although Dr Ishii's research was based on children in Japan, British experts confirmed that the same

trends apply in the UK. Child psychologist Dr David Lewis said: 'The mobile phone, like the Furby or

the Rubik's Cube before it, has developed into a playground craze in this country. Children hate to

feel as if they are not in the "in group", and think that without a mobile phone they will be left out.’

Dr Lewis endorsed the warning that, alongside home computers and video games, the mobile is

having a damaging effect on children's social skills. 'The mobile now often substitutes for physical

play,' he explained. 'To develop proper friendships you have to invest time with people, doing things

together. Speaking on the phone and sending lots of text messages will give children many more

acquaintances but fewer friends. They are replacing quality with quantity.'

Sociologists have also warned that the popularity of e-mailing, text messaging and playing games on

mobile phones is affecting other important activities such as recreational reading and studying.

A third of those aged between 16 and 20 prefer text messaging to all other means of written
communication, according to a survey last year by Mori for Vodafone.

Handset manufacturers claim, however, that they are not out to market to the under-16s.

A Government report last year highlighted the increased risk to children under 16 using mobile

handsets and a circular sent to schools suggests that children below this age should be allowed to

make calls only in emergencies.

1. Recall: What comparative conjunctions do you know?

Comparison Contrast

2. AO1: Retrieving information from the text

1. One in four children between what age has a mobile phone?

2. In paragraph 2, what do teenagers use their phones for?

3. Name two older ‘playground crazes’.

3. Deeper understanding: What are the problems with mobile phones?

Section of the text

Problem identified – use quotation is useful.
Title

Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

Paragraph 4

Paragraph 5

4. Target 9 Challenge: How does the writer show the problems with mobile
phones?

Recall: How do we persuade someone?

List as many ways you can persuade someone as you can remember.

Annotate the text, find at least three ways that the writer tries to persuade their reader that
mobile phones are a negative influence on teenagers.

Text 5: Comparing Texts (AO3)

‘Screens and teens: how phones broke children’s brains article from ‘The
Independent’ online by Helen Coffey

May 2024

Screens and teens: How phones broke children’s brains

A mental health emergency is hitting young people around the world, according to a new
book. Helen Coffey asks whether social media and tech are really responsible – and
whether smartphone-free cities could be the answer

M y sister, who works at a specialist

college, was recently telling me that phones
are the number one issue that she and her
colleagues are struggling with. Students have
them out at all times, clutched in their hands
like shiny, black security blankets. Her class
will message each other from across the room
during lessons, or scroll social media, or listen
to music; meanwhile, she’s desperately trying
to claw their attention back and get them to engage with the real world.

Screens and teens: it’s a combination that’s become increasingly tricky to navigate over
the last decade. The switch from what I think of as “analogue” phones – those with
buttons but no internet – to smartphones, compounded by an upsurge in digital living
during pandemic lockdowns, has resulted in 46 per cent of adolescents reporting they are
online “almost constantly”. Some 97 per cent of children have a smartphone by the age of
12, according to Ofcom data.

In February, new battle lines were drawn in this ongoing war. Government ministers
confirmed plans to ban them in schools in England, with the Department for Education
(DfE) issuing guidance to help teachers with implementation.

The reason this is so pressing isn’t simply that tweens and teens aren’t paying proper
attention in class. It has a far more sinister impact on children and young people’s mental
health, according to a new book, The Anxious Generation, written by social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt. He presents the compelling argument that the uptick in time spent online
has coincided with an alarming mental health crisis all over the world.

Between 2010 and 2015, suicide rates among 10 to 14-year-old girls and boys increased
by 167 and 92 per cent respectively. Self-harm rates for teenage girls in the UK soared by
78 per cent. Anxiety diagnoses for those aged 18 to 25 jumped by 92 per cent. During this
same five-year period, smartphones reached a majority of US households – they were
adopted faster than any other communication technology in human history. There is a
tangible link, too, between screentime and poor mental health, reveals Haidt: nearly 40
per cent of teenage girls who spend over five hours on social media a day have been
diagnosed with clinical depression.

Childhood and adolescence have been “rewired”, claims Haidt. Referencing the shift that
started at the turn of the millennium, when tech companies began creating a set of world-
changing products based around exploiting the rapidly expanding capabilities of the
internet, Haidt paints a deeply concerning picture.

“By designing a firehouse of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears,
and by displacing physical play and in-person socialising, these companies have rewired
childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale,” Haidt
writes damningly. Companies are accused of behaving like the tobacco and vaping
industries, designing highly addictive products and skirting laws in order to sell them to
minors.

There are four foundational “harms” triggered by the new “phone-based childhood”, puts
forth Haidt: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction.
The first is obvious. “Children need a lot of time to play with each other, face to face, to
foster social development,” says Haidt. Teens who spend more time in-person with their
peers have better mental health, according to research, while those who spend more time
on social media are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. But the percentage
of 17 to 18-year-olds in the US who said they hung out with their friends “almost every
day” dropped dramatically from 2009 onwards. Time spent interacting with people online
has replaced IRL equivalents – and adolescent mental health has taken a corresponding
nosedive.

1. Recall: What were the problems with phones identified in the

article in the Daily Mail?

BIG QUESTION

Both of the these texts are about mobile phone use amongst teenagers.
Compare:
 What the writers say are the negative effects of mobile phone use
 How they get their ideas across.

Daily Mail – Youngsters addicted to The Independent – Screens and teens.

mobile phones. What are the negative What are the negative effects?
effects?

How they get their ideas across

Modelled Answers: I do, We do, You do

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Transactional Writing

At Banovallum School, we prepare you for your examinations and set you up as
‘writers for life’ by teaching you how to write in many different ways. We practise
letters, articles, creative writing, reports, leaflets and always think about what we are
writing and who we are writing it for. The next section of the booklet will be focusing on
writing an opinion article about teenagers and mobile phones.

Recall: What do we already know about writing, and perhaps, writing an

article?
Paired discussion: Imagine you didn’t have a phone for a day. What would be
the limitations and what would be the benefits?