Looking outside the Mansfield bubble A YEAR 9 SCHEME OF WORK ABOUT ENGLISH NATIONAL IDENTITY

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Looking outside the Mansfield bubbleA YEAR 9
SCHEME OF WORK ABOUT ENGLISH NATIONAL IDENTITY

• Nicole Lyons
• GARIBALDI COLLEGE, MANSFIELD

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The aims of this session

• During the next 20 minutes I will
• Describe the context of Garibaldi College
• Describe a Scheme of Work about English National
  Identity which I developed last year
• Show examples of pupils work which were
  completed throughout this Scheme of Work

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The context of Garibaldi College

• 11-18 Comprehensive School
• North Nottinghamshire coal mining region
• Mainly white, English, working-class,
  heterosexual families
• High levels of poverty and unemployment
• Relatively low-ability pupils
• No Geography specialist in two years
• Now only 1 Geographer, 4 Historians and no RE
  specialist within the Humanities Department
• No A level uptake of Geography for 8 years
• A Year 11 class of 7 pupils no uptake in Year 10
• Current Year 9 first year studying Geography
  under a specialist

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The aims of the scheme of work

• To broaden pupils awareness of the different
  cultures which are found in England
• To allow pupils to consider what was, and what
  is, typically English
• To allow pupils to consider whether their own
  lives are typically English
• To address the levels of racism in the school
• To improve the quality and quantity of pupils
  work
• To improve uptake of GCSE Geography
• To offer pupils the opportunity to enjoy and
  experience a different type of Geography

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Lesson 1 What is Englands identity?

• Pupils enter the room to music
• See a slide show of blurred images of different
  countries
• Discuss what image might represent England using
  the examples shown in the presentation
• Make a spider diagram of these images
• Discuss which of these images are relevant to
  pupils lives
• Homework Past Identity vs. Present Identity

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The Seaside
David Beckham
Football Hooligans
Oak Trees
Branston Pickle
Rain
Tony Blair
Little Britain
Rolls Royce Cars
Fox Hunting
The Queen
British Bulldog
James Bond
Pubs
National Anthem
Full English Breakfast
Eastenders
Fish and Chips
Big Ben
The Beatles
Red Double Decker Buses
Roast Beef Dinner
Curry Houses
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Lesson 2 From butties to bhajis

• Skills-based lesson graph drawing
• Use a worksheet
• Uses takeaway food as one aspect of pupils lives
  which is multi-cultural
• Complete graph of takeaways and discuss the
  geographical issues which surround takeaway food
• International Trading
• Immigration
• Travel
• Relationship between the media and National
  Identities

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Lesson 3 Thank you for the music

• Use music as another aspect of pupils lives
  which is mutlicultural
• Explore different genres of music
• Country, Rock and Roll, Blues, Folk, Dance
• and discuss the geography of this music
• Travel
• Immigration
• Slavery
• War
• Then ask pupils to relate this knowledge to the
  current Top 10 singles chart

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Lesson 4 A right royal mess

• Bring pupils in to music
• Separate into groups ask each group to
  brainstorm their responses to different issues
  surrounding the Royal Family
• Then jigsaw the groups
• Write up a table of For and Against arguments
  about whether or not we should keep the monarchy
  in this country
• Homework Essay In your opinion, do you think
  that we should keep the Royal Family or not?
  Interview your family about their own views on
  this subject

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Lesson 5 Representations of England

• Literacy link to English and Media studies
• Show clips of different television programmes,
  adverts and film clips
• Eastenders, Four Weddings and a Funeral, HP
  sauce adverts, Coronation Street, Fawlty Towers,
  Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones Diary,
  Emmerdale, Heartbeat, The Krays, Bisto adverts,
• Discuss how well each clip represented England
  think-pair-share
• Homework Is Little Britain an accurate
  representation of todays Britain?

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Lesson 6 Represent your country

• Assessed pupils understanding of the difference
  between traditional and contemporary images of
  Englishness
• Pupils were asked to make a poster including at
  least 4 images which they felt were a good
  representation of modern English life
• Much higher standard of work than usual
• Many pupils chose to include some traditional
  images, but were able to explain why they had
  done this
• Completed within one lesson
• Easy to assess
• Fantastic work to display around the classroom

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Benefits of the Scheme of Work

• Pupils were keen to become involved in class and
  individual discussions as they found the topic
  interesting between 60 and 80 per cent of
  pupils said that they found the subject
  interesting and enjoyed it
• Parents feedback was very good, particularly
  regarding homework tasks
• Complies with National Curriculum and Citizenship
  requirements
• Massive improvement in homework both quality
  and quantity
• Pupils enjoyed the subject and found it
  interesting between 60-90 response in a
  typical end-of-unit questionnaire
• Provoked many discussions about racism,
  immigration and other topical issues

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Further developments of the scheme of work

• Further cross-curricular links with History, RE,
  Languages, PE, ICT, Citizenship
• A study of British National Identities HA
  pupils
• Is your town/city/village typical of England
• Research and questionnaires of different
  generations and/or community members
• Extended enquiry into international perceptions
  of England
• Debates about issues such as Fox-Hunting,
  Immigration, Racism
• Enquiry about the effect of large events such as
  Euro 96 and the Olympics on international
  perceptions of England
• Links with studies of regional identity at
  GCSE/AS/A2 level