Back In Time For School: everything you need to know about the time-travelling TV show

Decade-hopping TV series Back In Time For… is returning for 2019 with Back in Time for School.

The latest iteration of the BBC historical series will follow a group of secondary school pupils as they are fast-forwarded through 100 years of the British education system.

Over the course of eight episodes, they’ll explore how schooling has changed in the UK over the course of a century – and how those changes reflect wider shifts in British society.

Here’s everything you need to know about the show…

If you’ve already watched Back in Time for Dinner, Back in Time for Tea or even Back in Time for Christmas, you’ll probably be well-acquainted with the formula: in each episode, a family attempts to live as they would have done in a different decade, whether that means sampling the cuisine of the 1970s or exploring how teenagers would have filled their leisure time in the 1950s.

For the latest series, participants will be travelling even further back in time to learn more about how education has changed over the past century. A group of 15 pupils and three teachers will be fast-tracked through 100 years of schooling, giving them the chance to learn more about what students were taught, how they were taught it and how their teachers would treat them.

In the first episode, the teenagers will be transported back to 1895, when only four percent of children would continue to secondary school, and will have to get to grips with the strict formality and discipline of a Victorian classroom. They’ll be exploring everything from the scientific revolution to the changing role of women to authentic school dinners.

Later episodes will see the class recreating the interwar years and the 1950s.

Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox will be taking on presenting duties, having previously helmed Back in Time for Tea alongside food historian Polly Russell, who’s returning for this season too. Dr Kristy Turner, a chemistry teacher at Bolton School, will be supporting the group of pupils and teachers as they experience school life from bygone eras.

The first of eight episodes is set to air on BBC Two at 8pm on January 3.