Teachers
Girls at workBoys at work

Preparing for Work

Carpentry workshop

Discover how the homes provided the children with skills and training for work when they left.

Take a look at these two modules and read the fact file to find out about the work the children were prepared for.


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  1. It was really important that when they left the home at the age of 16, the children were able to earn their living.
  2. The training for girls and boys was very different. Girls were trained in laundry work, knitting, needlework, cooking and housemaid’s duties. Boys were trained in farm work, gardening, tailoring, carpentry and printing.
  3. All the homes prepared the children for work but some homes specialised in certain skills and they were called training or industrial schools. Find out more in our article on Ragged Schools, Industrial Schools and Reformatories.
  4. Fareham Industrial Home in Hampshire was a school for girls. It took girls from the age of 5 and taught them laundry work.
  5. Standon Farm Home in Staffordshire was an industrial school for boys and specialised in farm work and carpentry.
  6. Many of the items that were produced by the children were sold. For example, boys made items such as wooden picture frames and trays in the carpentry workshop, planted seeds and sold the plants in the spring and produced suits and boots in the tailoring and boot making workshops.
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