Contains depictions of discriminatory behaviour.

To generate vocabulary

Key Stage 2

English

The Windrush - Diary writing

﻿Hi everybody and welcome to our lesson today. Today we're going to a little bit deeper with the contextual knowledge that we worked on in our last writing lesson. We're going to work to generate some vocabulary and begin to plan our opening paragraph of our letter. Our learning objective today is to generate vocabulary. This is lesson number 6 of 15. In this lesson, you will need your exercise book or paper, your pen or pencil, and your best learning brain. You'll also need any notes that you took from our last lesson, when we began to develop our understanding of what life was like in Britain, for the Windrush passengers. Pause the video if you need to go and get any of those things. So today's agenda, first of all we're going to recap some key vocabulary. Then we're going to read a first hand recount, a poem, written by a Windrush passenger. Then we're going to discuss what we already know about the historical events of the time. And finally we're going to generate lots of vocabulary about emotions. So, lets get started with our writing warmup. I would like you to match the terms to their definitions. So, lets just go over these words again. Racism, your turn. Discrimination, your turn. Pardner system, your turn. Prejudice, your turn. Excellent, so lets go through the definitions. The unfair treatment of different groups of people. A system to collectively save money as a group. To negatively pre-judge a person or group of people based on no facts or evidence. And discrimination or hatred against someone because of their race. I would like you now to pause the video while you match the terms to their definitions. And I'll see you when you are ready. Okay everyone, hopefully we've all paused the video, we've all had a go at matching the terms to the definitions, now lets check. So racism is discrimination or hatred against someone because of their race. Discrimination is the unfair treatment of different groups of people. The pardner system was a system to collectively save money as a group. And prejudice is to negatively pre-judge a person or a group of people based on no facts or evidence. If you would like to pause the video, and you're unsure of any of those definitions, you could take some time now to write those sentences down. Okay everyone, now we're going to read a first-hand recount, a poem which was written by someone who had travelled over on the Windrush, from Jamaica. I'm going to read it first and then you can pause and read it again yourself, if you would like to. So 'Windrush' by Denniston Stewart. It was 1948 on the Windrush ship 500 men from the Caribbean was on it From warm Caribbean sand to this cold English land. We spent twenty eight day on the ship and everyone felt real sick; couldn't take the tossing of the Windrush ship. When we heard land ahoy, everyone packed up their one little grip. The ship docked at Tilbury, everyone began to feel merry setting foot in the mother country. Now there's some words in here we might not be familiar with the word grip means suitcase. Now you'll notice some of the words or phrases in this poem, seem a little bit different to how we might usually see poems written. Denniston Stewart, the poet, has written the poem in the way that he would speak. Suggesting that he's really proud of the way he speaks. The ship docked at Tilbury, Tilbury docks were in Essex, which is just outside of London. That was were the Windrush arrived. And mother country, can you remember what country the mother country is? Well done if you can, England. So we know that there were around 500 people on the Caribbean on this Windrush ship. From warm Caribbean sand to this cold English land we spent twenty eight days on the ship and everyone felt real sick; couldn't take the tossing of the Windrush ship. So, the ship had been tossed and turned along in the water for 28 days, so people probably felt really, really sea sick and when they heard land ahoy, meaning they were about to arrive in Tilbury Docks, everyone was feeling really excited, they grabbed their suitcases and felt happy setting foot in England. Now in our last writing lesson, we learned more about how the West Indian immigrants were treated after they arrived in England. Were their experiences positive or negative? Have a think back, can you remember? Were they positive or negative? Three, two, one, show me. Positive or negative? Three, two, one, show me. They were negative. Well done. So their experiences were negative. Can you remember why? Think back to our last writing lesson. So, of we think about housing. Did they have problems finding somewhere to live? Remember they spent their first few nights in Britain sleeping in an unused bomb shelter in Clapham. The housing was scarce, meaning there weren't enough houses for everybody to live in. London had been so badly bombed during the war that lots of people had lost their homes and there was lots of poverty, meaning lots of people lived in really poor conditions. It was very expensive to rent a property from a landlord. And racist landlords would often refuse to rent their properties to West Indian immigrants. Remember we learned about how lots of places had posters up on the walls or windows saying no blacks allowed in. The passengers in the Wind- also had negative experiences when they were looking for jobs. So they had been told that if they came to Britain, they would have great job opportunities, better than they had back in Jamaica. But many people struggled to find jobs. The West Indians qualifications were not recognised in Britain. So although they had worked hard and trained as professionals over in the Caribbean Islands, those qualifications suddenly weren't counted any more in Britain. Lots of them were trained professionals but they were not given opportunities to perform these jobs in Britain. Or they had to retrain for the same role. So, even if you had trained as a nurse or a doctor in Jamaica, you would have to go back and train again in Britain if you wanted to work as a nurse or doctor in the United Kingdom. Many people ended up working in low paid jobs which they were overqualified for. So they had lots of qualifications but the only jobs they could get were jobs as cleaners or other unskilled work, which was very low paid and didn't have the opportunities for promotions. So, we are going to be writing our letter as Sonia Thompson. This is a photograph of Sonia Thompson. She was from Kingston, which is the capital of Jamaica. And she served as an instrument repairer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Which was part of the Royal Air Force. Pause the video to mind map how you would feel if you were in Sonia's situation. So, you've gone from being an instrument repairer in the Royal Air Force, to travelling over to Britain, being promised lots of job opportunities and when you've arrived, you've encountered lots of racism and lots of challenges of even finding somewhere to live. I'd like you to mind map how you would feel if you were in Sonia's situation. Pause the video and take your time and when you are done, you can press play. Okay everyone, here are a few emotions that I think might be appropriate. So here are some of our angry words, which we looked at earlier in this unit. Furious, your turn. Raging, your turn. Livid, your turn. Fantastic, so Sonia might be feeling really, really angry. How else might she be feeling though? Glum, your turn. Sad or gloomy. When you feel like you're walking around with a little black cloud over your head. So this is a synonym for sad. Wistful, your turn. Sad, longing or nostalgic. Like the sad feeling you get when you look back on good memories. Perhaps Sonia would be wistfully thinking back to her memories of her life in Jamaica. And perhaps regretting her decision to move to England. Deflated, your turn. Perhaps feeling hopeless or let down. When you feel sad and empty like a ball with the air let out Imagine travelling for a month on a ship to cross over to another part of the world and expecting all of these amazing opportunities and wonderful adventures to come your way. And then the realty is that actually life is really challenging and quite unfair for you. You might be feeling really deflated. Disheartened, your turn. Sad, crushed or disappointed. The feeling you might have after dropping your ice cream. Humiliated, your turn. Very embarrassed or ashamed. How you feel if someone pulls your trousers down as a joke. So perhaps the Windrush passengers may have felt humiliated. We learned in our last writing lesson, how racist slogans were spray painted in some areas where these West Indian immigrants lived. That's really humiliating and upsetting and hurtful for those people who endured those challenges. So we've just had a really great discussion there about the vocabulary that we might use to describe the emotions of some of those Windrush passengers. Now I would like you to pause the video so you can add any of that new vocabulary to your mind map and press play when you're finished. Great everybody, so now we are going to be working on our planning. So this is what I would like you to make your plan look like. I would like you to draw a table on your page, and with the heading 'opening' and down the side you'll have three columns. Make sure you give yourself plenty of space so I would suggest that you use an entire page and turn it landscape, so it goes longways. It's always better to have too much space than not enough and then be trying to cram all your writing into tiny spaces. So, take a full page, turn it on its side and make your two columns. And down the left hand side, I would like you to write these headings. How was the journey on the Windrush? What happened when you first arrived? And how are you feeling? This is how we're going to structure our opening paragraph. So we're going to begin by writing about the journey, then were going to explain to our reader what happened when we arrived in Britain. And then we're going to talk about how those events have made us feel. I would like you to now pause the video to write your plan, and then start adding your initial ideas to your plan. So think back to that poem we've just read about how everyone felt really sea sick there were almost 500 people crammed onto the ship. The journey took 28 to 30 days. But people were feeling really merry and excited when they arrived in Britain. And then, what happened when you first arrived? Now we're not going into detail about the jobs and the housing situation. But maybe you could summarise using some of that key vocabulary. Racism, discrimination in this part of your plan. And then finally perhaps some of that new vocabulary we've just looked at, we might use in our how are you feeling section. So spend the next 5 or 10 minutes bullet pointing some of your initial or your first thoughts or ideas into your plan and I'll see you when you're ready. Okay everyone, hopefully you've all now got a plan full of some of your own ideas. Now I'm going to share my ideas with you. So, how was the journey on the Windrush? So the journey lasted around 30 days So there were 493 passengers that means it would have been really cramped, uncomfortable, warm on the Windrush. You might even add in about feeling sea sick perhaps. I'm going to make a note of the fact that Lord Kitchener was on board, so he was a really famous calypso singer. So there was lots of singing and sharing stories about what the Motherland would be like because on the journey, everyone was feeling really hopeful and excited about what their new lives in Britain would be like, or the 'Motherland'. Then what happened when you first arrived? So, there were Press at Tilbury Docks, Press is another word for the media or newspaper reporters. So there were reporters who were shouting, taking photographs of us, wanting to have interviews. Everyone on board the Windrush was really excited to arrive. However, so that's a formal but, there was no accommodation for us, so many of us spent the first few nights sleeping in an unused air raid shelter. So it was dark, claustrophobic, quite similar to how you had felt on the journey on the ship. So you've gone from feeling really cramped and uncomfortable for almost 30 days, to then being really cramped and uncomfortable inside an unused air raid tunnel. Finally, how am I feeling after this ordeal? Quite disappointed and disheartened, England is not what I expected it to be. I'm feeling quite wistful and nostalgic and homesick, I'm missing my family and friends back home in Jamaica. So if you would like to mind map or magpie any of the vocabulary that you can see on my example plan then you can pause the video while you do that now. But make sure to add it to the ideas you've already got down there. Because I'm sure you've got some amazing, creative ideas planned. Okay everyone, well done for all of your hard work what an incredible job you've done. We've developed our vocabulary, we've developed our understanding of what life was like in Britain, for those Windrush passengers and we've now started to plan in preparation for our writing lesson. I'm really looking forward to our lesson and well done for all of your hard work.

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UnitEnglish / The Windrush - Diary writing

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