It worked for me: key stage 3 cameos

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How to integrate black and Asian British history into the key stage 3 schemes of work

Dan Lyndon, advanced skills teacher, head of history and gifted and talented coordinator at Henry Compton School in London, remodelled his department’s schemes of work to integrate aspects of black and Asian history into teaching and learning. Dan wanted to do this to:

What is black and Asian British history and why should it be studied as part of the national curriculum?

There has been a continuous black presence in Britain for over 500 years. The first recorded evidence of this presence dates back to Roman times, when African soldiers of the Roman Army were stationed at Hadrian’s Wall. However, the first settled African communities started developing from the middle of the 16th century as British merchants began trading with the West African states. The community had grown in numbers during the reign of Elizabeth I and was under threat of removal (see case study 1 for further details). The attempt at removal failed, and Africans and their descendants have been living in this country from that point onwards. The first Asians in Britain arrived at a similar time as a consequence of the trade with India and the founding of the East India Company in 1600. Lascars (Indian sailors), servants and ayahs (nannies) were brought over to Britain by British families returning from India.

According to Dan, ‘History helps our students to understand the contribution that these communities have made over many generations and challenges prejudice and racial discrimination; mainstreaming black history into the curriculum increases motivation and attainment for all our students by making an important contribution to citizenship as well as student–teacher and student–student relationships within the school. Mainstreaming black and Asian British history allows us to challenge stereotypes, racism and ignorance.’

Activity 1: Elizabeth I and the Blackmoores

In 1596 Elizabeth I wrote to the lord mayors of major cities stating that there were ‘of late divers blackmoores brought into this realm, of which kind of people there are already here too manie’. She ordered that ‘those kinde of people should be sente forth of the land’. This was the start of Elizabeth’s failed attempt to remove the African community in England (she wanted to exchange Africans for English prisoners held on the continent).

For Dan, teaching about Elizabeth and the Blackmoores had several positive outcomes: it introduced year 8 pupils to the black presence in Tudor times, thereby debunking the myth that black people arrived in England when the SS Windrush docked in Southampton in 1948, and it was also an excellent opportunity to relate Elizabethan England to contemporary issues of race, asylum and immigration.

Dan Lyndon’s Black history for schools website contains a number of the teaching materials he used about Elizabeth and the Blackmoores, utilising both thinking skills and active learning strategies. In this lesson, the objectives were threefold:

Dan started the lesson with a visual hook – an arresting image of the Drake Jewel, a pendant presented to Sir Francis Drake by Elizabeth in recognition of his work with the Cimaroons (freed slaves in the Caribbean) fighting against the Spanish. The pupils then looked at a number of sources describing Elizabeth’s concerns about the increasing number of Blackmoores living in England and her attempts to secure the services of a Dutch merchant, Casper van Senden, to exchange English prisoners for Africans living in England.

The activities involved a mixture of comprehension (lower order), ranking (high order) and ‘think, pair, share’ (group work), and the lesson then moved on to a paired role-play activity where the pupils chose to be either Elizabeth and Lord Burghley discussing what they should do with the Blackmoores or a black servant and a black vagrant discussing what was to happen to them. The lesson concluded with a discussion of contemporary attitudes to race and immigration by comparing quotes from Elizabethan times with recent newspapers.

Activity 2: Black and Asian soldiers in the First World War

If the contribution that black people have made to the UK has been undervalued, one area where their contribution is more widely recognised is in the two world wars. There is an increasing amount of material available on the internet and at museums such as the Imperial War Museum. One approach to teaching about the contribution made by black and Asian people made during the First World War is to use a webquest to guide pupils through the topic. A webquest is an online lesson that uses the internet as a resource bank and uses higher-order thinking skills to improve pupils’ independent learning.

Dan used the ‘Black and Asian soldiers of the First World War’ webquest, which asked year 9 pupils to imagine that they had been commissioned to write a booklet for primary school children about the contributions that soldiers from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean made to the war. This task meant that pupils had to use higher-order thinking skills to synthesise the appropriate material and produce an outcome that was different from the original material they had used. There was also a self-assessment sheet for pupils to grade themselves on different criteria ranging from how many websites they used (this was deliberately scored to encourage them not to use too many), how appropriate their language was (this prevented too much cutting and pasting) and their effort.

The pupils spent approximately three lessons in the ICT room working independently on their booklets. As the pupils were in year 9, they were able to evaluate this project in the wider context of the work they had already completed.

Activity 3: The role of individuals: John Blanke and William Cuffay

By teaching about key individuals such as John Blanke and William Cuffay, and others such as William Davidson, Robert Wedderburn, Olaudah Equiano and Mary Seacole, Dan easily integrated black history into the mainstream without having to divert away from the topics that most history departments were teaching. Pupils were able to place those individuals within the context of historical events already taught in the national curriculum. This enhanced their understanding of those events.

In this lesson with a year 7 class Dan introduced John Blanke, a black trumpeter at the court of Kings Henry VII and VIII. He used Blanke’s life story as a way of looking at the role of the court as well as simply to demonstrate black presence in Tudor times. The image of John Blanke in his yellow and blue robes, flanked by other court trumpeters on their horses, and a document showing the monthly payment that was made to Blanke by the court treasurer formed part of a baseline test for the year 7 pupils. The purpose of this activity was twofold: to introduce the pupils to black presence in England and to use these sources to assess the pupils’ understanding of historical enquiry.

Dan then introduced William Cuffay, the black Chartist, to his year 9 pupils as part of a unit of work about the struggle for the vote. Pupils looked at the role of Cuffay, one of the leaders of the London Chartists, who was described by The Times newspaper as the ‘black man and his party’. They read stimulus material from the Spartacus website and worked through a series of comprehension questions on the William Cuffay worksheet from Black history 4 schools, culminating in an activity where they had to reflect on the fact that Cuffay’s story has often been overlooked. By raising this issue Dan introduced questions of historiography and who has been responsible for writing history.

Resources for teaching black and Asian history at key stage 3

Websites

100 great black Britons
This website has profiles of many of the leading individuals in black British history.
1001 inventions
This is a non-religious and non-political project about Muslim inventions and progress in science and technology. It promotes understanding of the interdependence of communities throughout human history.
Black history 4 schools
This includes teaching resources, articles and web links for teaching black and Asian British history in schools. The ‘William Cuffay – the black Chartist’ worksheet is available to download.
Compton history
Henry Compton School’s history website contains the ‘Black and Asian soldiers of the First World War’ webquest that Dan Lyndon used with his pupils.
Fathom
This website has a useful section called ‘The first Asians in Britain’.
National Archives: Black presence
This website gives details of black presence in the UK before 1850.
Spartacus
Spartacus is an online encyclopedia with a wealth of information about history.
Tudor portraits
This is an image resource. A picture of the Drake Jewel is available in section about Elizabeth I.
Westminster Archives: Celebrating the black presence in Westminster 1500–2000
This online exhibition is made up of paintings, parish records, photographs and cartoons that document black presence in Westminster over 500 years.

Books and articles

Bygott, D, Black And British, Oxford University Press, 1992
Fryer, P, Aspects of British black history, Index Books, London, 1993
Fryer, P, Staying power: The history of black people in Britain, Pluto Press, 1984
Lyndon, D, Integrating black British history into the national curriculum. Published in Teaching history, Historical Association, Volume 122, 2006. The above case studies are based on this article on the teaching of black and Asian history.
Sherwood, M, and Spafford, M, Whose freedom were Africans, Caribbeans and Indians defending in the Second World War?, Savannah Press, 1999
Teaching history, Historical Association, Volumes 112, 2003, 120, 2005, 122, 2006

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