Vist to Museum of London Docklands

On Monday 15^th June, year 6 visited the London Docklands museum as part of the Thames lightermen project. After a long journey, we arrived and settled in quietly. 

To get us prepared for the following activities, we did some warming up exercises and played fun games with an actor called Will. As soon as we were warmed up, we were told to watch the adults perform a miming scene from the time of the watermen and lightermen, which took place in the 18^th century to the mid-19^th century. This was an example of what we were going to act. We learnt that the watermen and lightermen were distraught at times especially when they were being paid unfair amounts and having very few customers/cargo.

Separated into 6 groups, we mimed different scenes from a particular time period; the blitz, 1750, the lightermen strike of 1972 and many more. Waiting to act in front of our class, we silently witnessed the beautiful miming skills of our classmates and performed amazingly.

In the afternoon, we viewed the rest of the museum and were wowed by the ancient artefacts. Our class loved looking at the angelically designed boat models.

Year 6 had fun learning about the lightermen as they were very popular; they were weekend millionaires and blew their money on expensive cars, rich clothes and drinking in pubs. Lightermen are extremely hard working because they worked overtime consequently earning lots of money to use in the weekends. Fortunately for the lightermen in the late 18^th century to 19^th they earned considerably more money than the past.

 
Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our educational visit to the London Docklands museum and look forward to future visits.