By Mrs Bezzer (English Teacher)

Memento mori: remember you must die.

Whilst perhaps these were not the most cheerful words with which to welcome my Year 8 students into their lessons this week, the significance of this Latin phrase had students inquiring and engaging in a special research project about death in Victorian times as part of their study of Costa Book Award-winning novel The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge.

The students have been following the character of main protagonist Faith Sunderly, a bright fourteen year old girl full of curiosity who has grown up in mid-Victorian England being taught that girls ‘cannot be brave, or clever, or skilled as a boy can’. When Faith’s world is rocked by the sudden and mysterious - suspicious, even - death of her father, Faith decides to put her curiosity and thirst for knowledge to good use: a search for the truth about what happened to Reverend Sunderly.

However, before Faith can get started on her ‘whodunnit’ mission, she and the family observe many customs and traditions associated with mourning in the Victorian time period. As a class, we also have paused our reading of the text to take time to learn more about the ‘art of dying well’. From finding out about post-mortem photography, to discovering the main causes and ‘cures’ for death in the mid-19th century as well as researching some of the elaborate mourning rituals and practices Victorians adhered to, it has been a fascinating few lessons.

The students were additionally challenged to present their work in creative ways, leading to a research presentation from a coffin (surely a first for BGS!) as well as some brilliant use of digital resources and good ‘old-fashioned’ pen and paper - with some crime-scene-style tape for good measure.