FUTURE PLANS

Welcome to 2008 and what promises to be another exciting year for bh4schools. To get the year started I have posted up some new material about Walter Tull, the Black professional footballer and first Black  Infantry Officer in the British Army during WW1. You can hear an excellent radio interview that I did with some students from my school about the work that we did on Walter as well as talking about visiting the site of his death in Favreuil, France last March. I have also added some taster material for the (still forthcoming!) education pack which should be available soon. I have yet to receive my copies so I guess there is a bit of a hold up in the production.

Plans are under way for a new addition to the website with some interviews with leading figures from the Black British History world and contemporary culture. So watch this space - the first interview should be with Steve (S I) Martin who I had the pleasure of meeting a few weeks ago at the inaugural Marika Sherwood Lecture at UCL. It was Steve's INSET at the Museum of London many years ago that set me off on the path to integrating Black and Asian British History into the curriculum so I am really looking forward to interviewing one of my heroes. The second interview will hopefully be with playwright Roy Williams, a former student at my school, who is undoubtedly one of the most talented writers in contemporary theatre. I went to see Roy's play, 'Joe Guy' at the Soho Theatre and some of the scenes were so powerful and prescient (particularly in light of the Man Utd Christmas Party) that I was replaying them constantly. Roy's particular talent is in picking up the language of the street / playground and working it in to his characters so well.

It was also great to read in the latest edition of Teaching History (issue 129) the article by Dale Banham and Rosie Sheldrake 'Seeing a different picture: exploring migration through the lens of history' in which they write about their experiences of teaching about the West Indian community in Ipswich. They used a community oral history project set up by the Ipswich Caribbean Association who had filmed interviews with 25 people to integrate this fantastic local history into their schemes of work. It was most gratifying to read how they have really taken on board the new requirements of the National Curriculum 2008 in teaching about diversity and enhanced their pupil's enjoyment and understanding of our history.   

Finally a huge thanks to everyone who supported the website in 2007, just under 40,000 people visited the website, with over half a million hits which meant that traffic to the site trebled compared to the previous year. Spread the word in 2008.

Cheers

Dan

#Posted 2 January 2008 at 5:02 PM

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