Unfolding Identities in Primary Schools

Unfolding Identities in Primary Schools

Unfolding Identities in Primary Schools
These three lessons have been designed around a series of films produced in Brighton by Yaa Asare, Equality Consultant and Ceza da Luz, Equalities Officer at East Sussex County Council,which address children’s unfolding identities in the primary classroom.
The lessons are intended to support children in talking about their own identities; to give them the opportunity to verbalise some of the different groups/ communities to which they feel they belong; to begin to recognise similarities and differences with peers and ultimately to think and speak proudly and confidently about themselves.
The objectives are drawn from the Brighton and Hove Equality And Diversity PSHCE Education Curriculum Framework For Primary Schools. They would fit within the Good to Be Me SEAL unit, or as a separate series of lessons during Anti-Bullying Week.
The lessons are based on the P4C principles of enquiry based learning.
However, the lessons given here are more structured than a traditional enquiry model, in order to support schools that do not currently use a P4C approach. This more structured approach also allows teachers to approach issues around identity in a more controlled way if they feel this is necessary, for example, to support the needs of particular children.
These films could of course be used as the stimulus for a more open P4C enquiry, with the questions given in the lessons then being used to help guide discussion.
These lessons would really benefit from being held in a circle, to allow for easier discussion and sharing of ideas.Discussion questions can be explored with talk partners before being shared in the whole group.
Session 1 / Objectives
H2.4 to reflect on and celebrate their achievements, identify their strengths, areas for improvement, set high aspirations and goals
R2.11 that differences and similarities between people arise from a number of factors, including family, cultural, ethnic, racial and religious diversity, age, sex, sexual orientation, and disability (see ‘protected characteristics’ in the
Equality Act 2010)
E2.9 to appreciate the diversity of national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in your school, Brighton & Hove and in the United Kingdom / Activities
1)Warm up: where do you feel happy/relaxed? Children have 1 minute to think about it and share with their partner. Theneverybody feeds back their “happy place” around the circle, summing it up in in five words or less to keep the discussion moving. This is a good chance to get everyone’s voice heard in the discussion. You can model a general answer - e.g. “asleep in bed” to help anyone who is stuck or doesn’t want to share their own.
2)Creating ground rules: We are going to be talking about who we are and what our identity is. What ground rules might we need to keep everyone safe? Collect ideas from the group, e.g. that people are free to share as much or as little as they like, and create a class list.
Explain that the films we are going to watch in this unit were all filmed in Brighton. These are not actors – they are real children talking about themselves and their lives. What might we need to add to our ground rules to make sure we respect them and their ideas? E.g. trying hard to listen to what they say and not make assumptions.
3)Matisse:Show the first minute or so of Matisse (stop when the film cuts to show Matisse in the woods). What have we learned about him so far? What have we learned from what he says? Anyone spotted anything in his room that gives us clues to who he is/what he likes? E.g. the Learn to Play the Guitar book on his desk.
Watch the rest of the film. Children could use whiteboards to jot down ideas as they go along.
4)Matisse’s identity:Give the children 5 minutes discussion time in groups of 4, and then ask them towrite down all the different things that we know about that make Matisse who he is. Record their ideas on separate pieces of A4 paper to allow them to be moved around the circle. Do we all agree? Can we group them – e.g. family background/ likes/dislikes/where he lives/his friends? Introduce the word identity. What does this word mean in relation to all the ideas we have collected about Matisse? Are there any things in Matisse’s identity that would be part of your identity as well?
5)Looking more widely at identity:What other aspects of people’s livesmight we be able to record? What else might be part of someone’s identity? Do we need to add any categories? Discuss these key questions in small groups or with all the children together.
6)Your own identity:Using Identity Sheet 1 (see Resources below), children choose and record some aspects of their own identity. The can be guided by the categories above if they prefer. It can be very powerful at this point for the adults in the room to also carry out this process, if they feel comfortable to do so. Children then save this sheet for use later.
7)Final words:select one circle to share. Children can choose to say “I’m unique” or “I’m me” if they prefer.
Session 2 / Objectives
R2.11that differences and similarities between people arise from a number of factors, including family, cultural, ethnic, racial and religious diversity, age, sex, sexual orientation, and disability (see ‘protected characteristics’ in the Equality Act 2010)
R2.14to develop the skills to recognise and challenge inequality, prejudice, stereotyping and injustice including bullying, racism, sexism, disablism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. / Activities
1)Warm up: Words – describe e.g. star in 3 words (e.g. twinkle, night,sky )Now describe yourself in three words.
2)Ground rules:Recapping on the ground rules
3)A.J.:Watch A.J. What words can you spot that A.J. uses to describe himself? (e.g. mixed race, Bangladeshi). What does A.J. mean by “mixed race” (being a mixture of two different cultures because his parents are from Bangladesh and he lives in England)? Does anyone know another meaning of “mixed race” (having one parent of each race)?
4)Choosing your words For some parts of people’s identity, there are lots of different words that people might use. The important thing is to be able to choose the words you want to use to describe yourself – and allow other people to choose how to describe themselves. One example would be all the different words for children at school – e.g. kids, students, youngsters etc. How many other words can you think of? Which one do you prefer to be called? What about more negative words – e.g. brats, kiddies. How would these names make you feel? Have you ever been called one of these names? With a partner, can you try asking someone to use the word you prefer? Can you try asking someone what they would rather be called? Can you try asking someone not to use a word that you really don’t like?
5)Protected characteristicsIntroduce the protected characteristics circleswithout explaining what they are (Identity Sheet 2 below). What do you think these have in common? Are there any that you don’t understand? Where have you come across these before? In Britain, these are “protected” – it is illegal to discriminate against someone based on any of these things. Can we explain what “discrimination” is? For example, you can’t decide that you don’t want to give someone a job based on their religion or how old they are. Why do you think these are protected? Have they always been protected? Should any other categories also be protected?
6)Assumptions People often make assumptions about other people based on the parts of their identity they can see. Can you think of any assumptions people might make about the people on the identity circles (Resource Sheet 2)? How would you challenge the assumptions people make? (e.g. giving counter examples, refusing to generalise about people, giving a different situation etc. NB: Less confident children may not feel safe about verbally challenging assumptions, but the first step would be to actively challenge those assumptions in their own head and it can be worth pointing out here that saying to themselves “I know in my own mind that this is wrong and I disagree” is a good thing to do and a positive move towards being able to challenge stereotypes verbally. Can you think of any assumptions people might make about you? How would you challenge them?
7)Final words: We know that living in Britain means you are legally protected against discrimination for any of these reasons (though of course discrimination for these reasons does sadly still happen, even though it is now against the law). What else do you think “British” means? What does living in Britain mean to you?
Session 3 / Objectives
H2.4 to reflect on and celebrate their achievements, identify their strengths, areas for improvement, set high aspirations and goals
R2.8to listen and respond respectfully to a wide range of people, to feel confident to raise their own concerns, to recognise and care about other people’s feelings and to try to see, respect and if necessary constructively challenge their points of view / Activities
1)Warm up: Born or created?Ask the children to imagine a line down the middle of the circle. One end represents “need to be born with natural talent”, the other “anyone can develop the talent”. Give children a range of attributes – e.gfantastic singer, brilliant footballer, outstanding gymnast, amazing artist, very kind person, superb violinist, very confident etc. and ask them to position themselves on the line depending on which they agree with – born or made. Are there differences? Why?
2)Ground rules:Recapping on the ground rules
3)Choosing words - recapping on lastlesson – Watch Theo. Theo describes his Mums as “lesbians”. Do we know what that means? What other words might he have used? N.B. This is an interesting discussion question to find out what the children know, and can allow negative language to be heard and challenged but the discussion needs to be made safe. If this might be tricky, then this could be a teacher led information point instead. How could you ask a friend who had two mums or dads what their parents would like to be called? Could you practice? What about a friend who lives with a step-parent? How could you ask them what language to use?
4)Changing your identity?One of Theo’s Mums has changed part of her identity – she used to work in an office and now she is a forest ranger. Looking at your own identity sheet from lesson 1 – which of your circles could you change in the future? Which will always stay the same? How was your identity created – which of your circles were you born with and which have you developed over time?
5)Future IdentityTheo says in the film that he would like to work with birds of prey and also says “I would like to be a very peaceful person”. What would you like to be part of your identity in the future? What future circles would you like to add? Who would you like to be in the future – not jobs etc, but your personality? What sort of a person would you like to be? Children add in extra circles – they could use another copy of Resource Sheet 1 or stick their original sheet on a larger piece of paper. How could you go about building the aspects of your personality that you want to have? How do you think that Theo could achieve his aim of being a really peaceful person? NB – if time allows, this would be a great starting point for an enquiry session based around whether it is possible to always be peaceful, kind, friendly, caring etc. – and whether there are times when you should not be these things? For example, are there times when it is important to get angry? This could link back to the work on assumptions from the last lesson.
6)Final wordsCan you pick one current aspect of your identity that will always be part of you and one new aspect that you would like to be part of your identity in the future to share around the circle?
Project Conclusion
If time allows, the children could make their own films/presentations/photo collages etc., allowing them to share the thinking they have done around their own identity with a wider audience. These could be used for display in the classroom or shared on a website.

Resource Sheet 1

Resource Sheet 2

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