Educational Resources for Schools – Embracing the Black Experience
The Bernie Grant Trust launched its new educational microsite for teachers, at the House Of Commons in March with the help of Patrick Vernon and Kehinde Andrews.
The resources have been produced as part of the Bernie Grant Trust’s “Marginalised No More” programme, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s objective was to use the extensive Bernie Grant Archive to acquaint a new generation of citizens with the largely undocumented experiences and struggles in recent black history in the 1980’s and 1990’s, as well as encouraging appreciation of the value of archives.
The resources were developed after considerable consultation with teachers, and guided by the many challenges they face in acknowledging diversity, identity and inclusion issues in the classroom. Time pressures were identified as a major constraint on teachers, as was the narrowing of curriculum options in recent years, along with few of them being aware of archival resources, making it more and more difficult to teach black history specifically – or indeed issues arising from it.
In recognition of these constraints we have emphasised the need for flexibility and accessibility in developing these resources for teachers. We believe they may be used in a wide variety of lesson planning contexts, and for “everyday teaching”, rather than just for Black History month.
Trustee Patrick Vernon OBE commented:
“The Bernie Grant Archive is a rich resource providing a unique record of the experiences of Black Britons in recent history. As one of Britain’s first black political representatives, the late MP left us a rich source of information about disadvantage, discrimination and injustice, and the various ways in which the black community fought to establish its place in society.
We hope that the microsite developed from the archive, will help teachers to make pupils aware that black people were present and active in society in this period, about the conditions they faced, and how they fought for a place in Britain – and that it will help young people themselves as they wrestle with the many issues they face as citizens in society which increasingly challenges the rights of ethnic minorities”.
Sharon Grant OBE, Secretary to the Trust said: “We are grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for funding the wider project of which this is part, to the many teachers and others who engaged with us in our consultations, to the Parliamentary Education Service, and to the Chief Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute, which houses the archive. Our thanks are due too to our consultant Helen Sanson, Director of Forcera, for her insightful work in developing this resource”.
For further information contact: projects@berniegranttrust.org.