A stunning exhibition of work by pupils from six Tower Hamlets primary
schools. Working in collaboration with artists, poets and actors and
led by The Spitalfields Centre, Suitcases and Sanctuary explores
the history of immigration to the East End and provides an opportunity
for children to learn about the diverse society of today's Britain.
Participating Schools: Christ Church School, English Martyrs
School, Hague School, Harry Gosling School, Kobi Nazrul School,
St.Paul's Primary School.
Aims
and objectives
Main beneficiaries
The initiative
Outcome
Evaluation and
assessment opportunities
Challenges encountered
Cross curricular
links
Links
with other schools and groups
Supporting resources
Project contacts
National
Curriculum relevance
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The aims and objectives
Tower Hamlets is one of the poorest and most ethnically diverse
of London boroughs. Spitalfields is the most deprived ward within the
borough though literally 'on the edge' of the prosperous city. The
history of Spitalfields is the history of its immigrants. Successive
waves of peoples who brought new skills, new attitudes, new cultures
and new foods; peoples who over the past millennium shaped multicultural
Britain for the 21st century.
The aim of the initiative was to contribute to an understanding of citizenship
through a project that looked at the experiences of six different immigrant
groups. It was designed as an opportunity for children to learn about
the history of their local area and relate this to the history of the
nation. The children do not tell their own family stories but study the
lives of other groups, working across cultures and generations to explore
the many strands of immigration to the East End. Through this they gain
an insight into another cultural, ethnic or religious group and how to
look at things through another pair of eyes.
Children made an in depth study of one particular ethnic group who have
immigrated to the East End, though not the group from which they or their
families came. Working with outside experts - historians, actors, poets
and photographers they addressed the issues explored through a variety
of media from poetry, prose, pictures, audio and film.
Specific aims were to develop imaginative understanding of questions
such as:
- Why did some people leave their home for a strange country?
-
What was their journey to England like; what
hopes and dreams did they bring and what did they leave behind?
-
How were they treated on arrival in London?
-
What does it feel like to be a newcomer here?
Broader aims were to -
- develop education materials that would be useful in all schools.
- create a site specific exhibition to promote public awareness about
immigration and what we owe to our minority groups.
- provide an opportunity for the public to learn from the work of
Tower Hamlet's school children.
-
Schoolchildren and university students who visited the
exhibition as part of their studies.
-
Teachers, some of whom found the material and cross curricular
approach to work helpful beyond the confines of this project.
-
The 5,000 visitors from the U.K and overseas who attended
the exhibition who had an opportunity to learn about the complex
and rich history of immigration and the different ways of developing
connections and understanding between different people.
-
The people who run the Spitalfields Centre, who are currently
developing Britain's first Museum of Immigration.
"We learnt a great deal from how the
public reacted to the imagination and honesty of the children's
work, and are developing a new way of making displays in a
museum, asking children to help us in our work."
Susie Symes, Chair of The Spitalfields
Centre.
-
Local people who volunteered to help with visitors to the
exhibition, or who work in local businesses that benefit from people
coming specially to see an exhibition that was widely reviewed.
-
Newly arrived refugee groups, who came to the exhibition
and learnt how others before them went through similar difficulties
before becoming citizens and feeling truly at home.
-
The wider community of Britain, as this project helps to
promote an equal and diverse society, challenging discrimination
and racism.
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The initiative
The collaboration between The Spitalfields Centre, Tower
Hamlets primary schools, artists, actors, historians and poets culminated
in a public exhibition of immigration into the East End situated within
19 Princelet Street, an atmospheric, unrestored, Huguenot silk merchant's
home and rare Victorian synagogue.
The children's work is shown in battered suitcases, the motif of
the migrant. Visitors are invited to search inside for the dreams and
hopes of the peoples who left their homes to arrive in the East End.
Movingly, children from Asian families tell a Yiddish folk tale about
countering racism. Pupils from a very mixed school tell about the terrible
conditions and low wages of newly arrived Irish workers in their own
1889 Irish Times and visitors are invited to participate in writing
onto luggage labels what they would take if they too had to escape
with a single bag.
As this exhibition shows us, today's citizens were yesterday's refugees.
The Pilot Project
The Spitalfields Centre developed trial teaching packs for each school, on
each of the main immigrant groups to this area:
the Huguenots, Irish, Jewish, Afro-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Somali peoples.
The packs included background information, ideas for class work, pictures
and other resources such as original source material.
The centre worked with each school to fit in with their approach and
arranged for at least two workshop leaders, drawn from different minority
communities, to work with the children and assist them in exploring
issues in depth.
The final work was treated with great respect and shown in a professional
way that gave the work value to visiting adults and other school parties.
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The outcome
The success and strength of the work was mainly because;
-
Children worked intensively over at least half a term or
less intensively over a full term.
-
The children met and worked with at least three adult experts
who shared their personal experience and expertise.
-
Children were able to develop ideas and test them out on
different people.
-
The work was cross curricular, with a clear focus of research.
-
Children saw the project as a bridge between classroom studies
and the real world of dusty old buildings and adult people who
lived through 'history'.
The project did not set out to involve parents or home activities,
but many children became very engaged, talked a lot about the project
at home and brought their families to see the exhibition.
"It is our shared history as Londoners,
as British people. The children's work explores both similarities
and differences between how immigrants have been treated over the
centuries. The exhibition shows us, through fresh young eyes, a
variety of cultures and the ways they have enriched life in our
area and in London as a whole."
Susie Symes, Chair of the Spitalfields Centre.
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Evaluation and assessment opportunities
Press, radio and T.V coverage around the world brought 5,000
people in just 5 weeks to see the achievements of our local children
and schools.
"An extraordinary exhibition…" The
Jewish Quarterly
"Hauntingly beautiful…." The
Times
"When you walk through the door…time falls away." The
Big Issue
"A genuinely innovative celebration of immigration" Asian
Voice
Film and TV star Colin Salmon praised the children's work as "stunningly
imaginative…and great fun!"
And Bernard Crick, Citizenship Advisor for the DFEE exclaimed, "Every
school should see it!".
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Challenges encountered
The bringing together of children to tell each other their
story was not as effective as it could have been. Understanding the
diversity of immigration over time was achieved best through children
seeing the complete exhibition, rather than, as had been hoped, by
bringing schools together to share their individual work.
The Spitalfields Centre will now move on to produce teachers notes
that stand alone from the exhibition but deal with the issues covered.
They have received demand from both teachers in Tower Hamlets and throughout
London to develop a resource for general use.
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Cross curricular links
In addition to fulfilling National Curriculum targets for
Citizenship and PSHE this initiative also meets guidelines for
the following subjects -
English - Group discussion, speaking, listening and writing.
History - Interpretation, knowledge and understanding of
events, people and changes in the past.
Geography - Population, economic activity, interdependence
of places and the idea of global citizenship.
Art and Design - Investigating and making art, craft and
design
Music - Cultural diversity.
R.E - Religious and moral beliefs, values and practices.
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Links with other schools, community groups
and organisations, local and national.
The Spitalfields Centre charity is dedicated to preserving
the unique immigrant site at 19 Princelet Street and giving it
new purpose as a new sort of museum where visitors can discover
the stories of people - including the Huguenots, Irish, Jewish,
Bangladeshi and Somali peoples.
This project is for everyone: those who have recently arrived and
those who want to understand about the cultural and ethnic diversity
of Britain.
The house will open permanently in about 4 years. It needs some £3million
of funding, and receives many donations from visitors as well as raising
funds from foundations.
It is a place to celebrate diversity, to build understanding through
education and through bringing people together and is the first of
its kind in Europe.
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Supporting resources
The vision of the Spitalfields Centre extends beyond 19 Princelet
Street and into the classroom. We hope to see children and their
teachers engaged in learning, understanding and imagining what it
means to leave one country for another, and how centuries of immigration
have enriched our nation.
To achieve this, the Spitalfields Centre aim to produce classroom
materials for schools. Teacher's packs will include background information,
large photographs and documents for wall displays and activity sheets
for children.
The materials are likely to be aimed at children in the upper end
of primary school and the younger end of secondary school, (Key Stage
2 & 3). They will aim to help teachers to prepare some of the lesson
plans for the citizenship curriculum.
There will also be ideas for teaching literacy, numeracy, history,
geography, music, art, information and design technology.
The Spitalfields Centre would be interested to know if schools would
use classroom materials such as these, as this will help them raise
funds to provide the materials.
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Project contacts
The Spitalfields Centre
Chair: Susie Symes
Advisory Board and Volunteers: Delwar Hussain, Philip Black
19 Princelet Street,
London E1 6QH
Tel: 020 7247 5352
Email: information@19princeletstreet.org.uk
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Key Stage 2 Citizenship
and PSHE National Curriculum relevance
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Developing confidence and responsibility
and making the most of their abilities. Pupils should be taught -
- to talk and write about their opinions,
and explain their views, on issues that affect themselves and society.
(1a)
- to recognise their worth as individuals
by identifying positive things about themselves and their achievements,
seeing their mistakes, making amends and setting personal goals.
(1b)
- to face new challenges positively
by collecting information, looking for help, making responsible choices,
and taking action. (1c)
Preparing to play an active role as citizens.
Pupils should be taught-
- to realise the consequences of anti-social
and aggressive behaviours, such as bullying and racism, on individuals
and communities. (2c)
- to reflect on spiritual, moral, social,
and cultural issues, using imagination to understand other people's
experiences. (2e)
- what democracy is, and about the
basic institutions that support it locally and nationally. (2g)
- to appreciate the range of national,
regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom.
(2i)
- to explore how the media present
information. (2k)
Developing good relationships and respecting
the differences between people
Pupils should be taught -
- that their actions affect themselves
and others, to care about other people's feelings and to try to see
things from their points of view. (4a)
- to think about the lives of people
living in other places and times, and people with different values
and customs. (4b)
- to recognise and challenge stereotypes.
(4e)
- that differences and similarities
between people arise from a number of factors, including cultural,
ethnic, racial and religious diversity, gender and disability. (4f)
During the key stage
Pupils should be taught the Knowledge,
skills and understanding through opportunities to-
- feel positive about themselves. (5b)
- meet and talk with people. (5e)
- consider social and moral dilemmas
that they come across in life [for example, encouraging respect and
understanding between different races and dealing with harassment].
(5g)
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