This activity was carried out with a mixed group of 10 year 2 and year 6 children from an inner-city Manchester school with a predominantly ethnic minority population. Most of the children were of Caribbean heritage and were working in a cross-key stage group to counter underachievement.

The children visited the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre accompanied by some parents and one teacher. They spent an afternoon working there and continued the activity back at school.

Aims

• To explore the achievement of Mary Seacole as a Jamaican heroine.
• To use a range of resources and use paper and internet sources when conducting their own research.

Activity objectives

• To learn about the important role Mary Seacole played in the Crimean War and the wider impact this had.
• To question racial attitudes.
• To understand and value the positive contributions made by black and ethnic minority women.

This activity relates to unit 4, 'Why do we remember Florence Nightingale?' from the QCA/DfES key stage 1 and 2 scheme of work for history.

It also relates to the following references from the key stage 1 programme of study for history:

• place events and objects in chronological order (1a)
• recognise why people did things, why events happened and what happened as a result (2a)
• select from their knowledge of history and communicate it in a variety of ways (5)
• study the lives of significant men, women and children from the history of Britain and the wider world (6c).

Activity description

The teacher gave the children a brief outline of Mary Seacole's life, referring to pictures, maps and books, and used historic and contemporary images of Kingston in Jamaica (Seacole's birthplace) to find out how much children already knew about it.

The teacher mixed up a number of the key dates in Seacole's life and showed them to the children in the wrong order. The children put the dates in the correct order, and then the teacher gave each child a date and asked them to find out, during the later research session, why it was significant.

The children then watched Famous people: Mary Seacole (Channel 4 learning). This video is 15 minutes long and is designed for key stage 1 children. It describes Mary’s life and includes dramatised episodes to show her experience of racism and determination to nurse in the Crimea. It also looks at how she 'disappeared' from history.

After watching the video, children began the research session. They completed a simple questionnaire and then had to find out the significance of their key date. They used the book and internet resources at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Centre and were helped by the teacher and parents. For the key date, each child wrote a sentence or drew a picture to explain why it was important.

For the final part of the activity, the group compiled a timeline using the dates and the pictures or descriptions. They completed the timeline back at school and used it as part of an assembly presentation.

Commentary

The video is short and accessible and the children enjoyed watching it. Seeing it before they started the paper research helped them in their work with text resources, since some of these are complicated for early readers. Most of the internet resources about Mary Seacole's life are written for older students or adult audiences.

The lesson structure encouraged the children to support each other in finding out the significance of their key dates, and they all contributed to the final group product according to their ability, either with a picture or with writing.

The activity gave children an opportunity to research ethnic minority heroes and heroines, which is important for combating stereotypes. In the case of Mary Seacole, it raised interesting questions about racial attitudes in the 19th century as well as questions about why some people who were famous in their own time (as Seacole was) disappear from history while others remain famous (Florence Nightingale remained famous but Seacole has been rediscovered).

Mary Seacole's life story can be used in assemblies about women's achievements or about people who help others. The teacher followed up this activity with lessons about other ethnic minority heroes and heroines, and the lesson structure could be adapted for other black heroes such as Olaudah Equiano and Nelson Mandela.

Resources

There are many books about Mary Seacole, although not all the ones listed below are suitable for early readers.

Harriet Castor, Mary Seacole, Franklin Watts Limited, 2001, ISBN 0749643137

Sam Godwin, Mary Seacole: A story from the Crimean War, Hodder Wayland, 2001, ISBN 0750237686 (paperback)

Eric L Huntley, Two lives: Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole, Bogle-L'Ouverture Press, 1993, ISBN 0904521915

John Malam, Mary Seacole ('Tell me about' Series), Evans Brothers, 2000, ISBN 0237519747 (hardback)

Christine Moorcroft and Magnus Magnusson, Stop, look, listen: famous people - Mary Seacole, 4Learning, 2000, ISBN 1862153493

Mary Seacole, The wonderful adventures of Mrs Seacole in many lands (available in many different editions)

Brian Williams, The life and world of Mary Seacole, Heinemann, 2003, ISBN 0431147841

An information poster about Mary Seacole is available from the Pictorial Charts Education Trust.