Class 8 is spending the last Main Lesson of the term exploring the momentous Industrial Revolution, which followed on from the Renaissance in Europe and spread across the Western World to America and Australia. We started off by looking at the accidental invention of the Spinning Jenny in Britain, which heralded the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Through looking at inventions such as the steam engine, power loom and agricultural developments, and the representation of life and the changing landscape depicted in artworks from that time, the class examined the human passage from an agrarian based society to an urban and industrial one.

From Britain we then crossed the ocean to Australia, discussing the effects of industrialisation on various industries as well as on travel, migration, communication, education, and daily life in 19th century Australia. The class has engaged in many great discussions around the lasting impact of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution to our modern world, for example discussing the modern invention of the self-serve checkouts at supermarkets and the positive and negative impacts of such an invention on our modern world. In the final week of the Main Lesson, Class Eight are again crossing the word to learn about the events leading up to, and the beginning of the tumultuous French Revolution.