Children at work: Activities

Skilled and Unskilled.

The activities in this topic will focus on various jobs and whether you need to be trained and qualified to do them. It looks at Victorian jobs and modern jobs. Through discussion the children will realise that people today have many of the occupations that Victorians did.

As an introduction to this area it may be advisable to find out what the children know in advance of the activity. Discuss with the children what we mean when we say "skilled worker". Talk about and list the various skilled jobs they know about such as electrician, plumber, and teacher. Explain that people have to train and gain a qualification to become a skilled worker. Then make another list for unskilled jobs such as cleaner, shoe polisher, factory hand.

Activities

Click here to download classroom activities, which are based on the idea of skilled and unskilled work. They are provided as a file in Microsoft Word format for you to print out and copy.

Arrange the class into pairs and give each pair a set of cards. Ask the students to put the cards into the boxes and sort them into skilled and unskilled.

Then ask them to arrange them into twenty-first and nineteenth century jobs. The class may need reminding how to complete a Carroll diagram.

In the plenary go through what they found out by filling in the Carroll diagram together.