The museum was founded to make the history of the Ragged Schools and the broader social history of the Victorian East End accessible to all. Within the original buildings, an authentic Victorian Classroom has been set up where each year some 16,000 children experience a school lesson as it would have been taught more than 100 years ago.

The museum has several gallery areas, a reconstructed Victorian Classroom and a Victorian East End Kitchen displaying its own collection of historical objects, all designed for hands-on inspection. This is a museum where you can sit at the school desks, use the tin bath and experience what life was like for the Victorian poor of the East End of London.