South West Institute for Teaching SWIFT
  • Home
  • About us
    • Vision and more
    • SWIFT Teaching School Hubs
    • SWIFT Partnership
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Leadership and Governance
    • Sustainability
    • Our SWIFT Artwork
    • Sponsorship
    • Privacy policies
  • Membership
  • ITT
  • Appropriate Body
  • ECTP
  • NPQs
  • CPD
    • CPD view and book 2024-2025
    • Professional Communities
    • Conferences and Forums
    • Leadership and Performance Analysis
  • News
  • Contact us
  • Home
  • About us
    • Vision and more
    • SWIFT Teaching School Hubs
    • SWIFT Partnership
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Leadership and Governance
    • Sustainability
    • Our SWIFT Artwork
    • Sponsorship
    • Privacy policies
  • Membership
  • ITT
  • Appropriate Body
  • ECTP
  • NPQs
  • CPD
    • CPD view and book 2024-2025
    • Professional Communities
    • Conferences and Forums
    • Leadership and Performance Analysis
  • News
  • Contact us
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

12/9/2023 0 Comments

Diversity in the History Curriculum with Dr Miranda Kaufmann| Black Tudors and Other Untold Stories ​

"Whatever the curriculum says, YOU have the power to change what happens in the classroom.”

We were pleased to welcome historian, author, raconteuse, Dr Miranda Kaufmann at the end of term to conclude our 2022 – 2023 SWIFT History Masterclass series with her talk on Diversity in the History Curriculum: Black Tudors and Other Untold Stories with inspiration from her book, “Black Tudors: The Untold Story.” 
Picture
 "[It is too easy] by emphasis and omission to make children believe…that every great thought was a white man’s thought and every great deed…a white man’s deed.”
(W.E.B. DuBois, American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist and author).
 
The impactful inclusion of Black British History is clearly and increasingly a vital priority in diversifying the curriculum. Yet, curriculum observers will know that it is not new. 

Teaching Black History dates back to the introduction of the National Curriculum 30 years ago with guidance to teach “the essential knowledge that they [children and young people] need to be educated citizens.”

The important starting point is to acknowledge that Black History is British History. It is not and should not be a hidden truth.  Even if some school History textbook covers have conventionally (and painfully) mispresented Black History with clichéd images of enslaved people.
Picture
Quoting from Zadie Smith’s acclaimed novel “White Teeth,” Miranda highlighted this recurrent ignorance in the miseducation of Irie Jones. In the story, when Irie, the daughter of an Englishman and a Jamaican woman is studying Shakespeare’s sonnets, she asks her teacher Mrs Roody if the “dark lady” is “black” to which Mrs Rooney replies:

“No dear, she’s dark. She’s not black in the modern sense. There weren’t any… well, Afro-Carri-bee-yans in England at that time, dear. That’s a more modern phenomenon, as I’m sure you know. But this was the 1600s. I mean I can’t be sure, but it does seem terribly unlikely, unless she was a slave of some kind, and he’s unlikely to have written a series of sonnets to a lord and then a slave, is he?”


Uncomfortable, and as Miranda was to show us, inaccurate.
But the good news is that this perception is changing and clarifying.
Picture
Picture
In a highly engaging talk, it was a refreshing revelation for me, and the Subject Leaders and Teachers of History in the audience to know and understand that over 200 Africans were living freely in Tudor England as Miranda drew on examples from her book featuring the stories of ten Black Tudors.

Wonderfully intriguing and individual roles, such as John Blanke, the Trumpeter, Jacques Francis, the Salvage Diver and Mary Fillis, the Moroccan Convert. All of which intensely and intelligently refuted two common assumptions about Black British History. Firstly, there were Africans in Tudor England over 400 years before the first Windrush immigrants disembarked in Tilbury, Essex. Secondly, they were not enslaved. A clear and compelling case to refute those stereotypical textbook covers.

Next, by teaching Black British History, those students with African ancestry can feel a sense of belonging, in that they are part of British History too.

Clearly, an important piece of diversity, equality and inclusion work; which will hopefully encourage Black students to pursue history to GCSE, A Level and beyond; eventually impacting the way History is studied and presented by academics and popular historians, enhancing the discipline with a broader range of perspectives.

Teaching Black British History can help to support the struggle against racism in challenging racist assumptions that immigration is a 20th Century phenomenon – and can be reversed. As Miranda shows in her book, focusing on the stories of African figures from the past can encourage empathy. 

By extension, this helpfully supports a timeline of understanding the ‘before’ the period of slave trading and colonisation and the after; and powerfully demonstrates the role of questioning assumptions in the study of History. The “interruption of the psyche” (Whitburn and Mohamed, Justice 2 History).
Picture
​As in any curriculum change, there needs to be a long-term commitment and schools and teachers can play their part and we thank Miranda for sharing the following helpful suggestions to upskill and up-knowledge teaching of Black British History in the classroom:

  • Consider available new module options. For example, Migration GCSE; African Kingdoms at A Level.
  • Share similar cross-curricular conversations. For example, in English, Geography.
  • Ask new questions of existing topics.
  • Take a Local history study over time.
  • Enhance subject knowledge and boost your confidence in teaching Black British History.
  • Links to available resources below.

Miranda Kaufmann | website
FREE online six-week course with FutureLearn
Africans and their lives in Tudor England BBC Bitesize lessons
Hodder Education Key Stage 3 enquiries
Miranda’s #TeachingBlackTudors blog

With thanks to Miranda for her motivating and enlightening talk that made us all think about the endurance of Black British History and for sharing ways to teach and bring to life this significant part of history that can inform the present.

By Jude Owens,
PA to the Executive Team and Governance 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    SWIFT News
    ​

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022

    Categories

    All Advice AI Annual Conference Appropriate Body Service AQA Art Artificial Intelligence Associate College Attendance Character Education Conferences CPD CPD Provider Creativity Cultural Diversity Curriculum Forum Curriculum Hubs Data Data Protection Department For Education Devon Research School Diversity Equity And Inclusion Early Career Framework Enrichment Activity Events Exams Funding GDPR Golden Golden Thread Governors History Teaching Interview Interviews IT Support Leadership Forums Literacy LSSW Masterclasses Membership Multi Academy Trusts National Institute Of Teaching New New Horizons News Newsletter Newsletters NPQs Ofsted Partnership Physical Education Professional Professional Communities Professional Development Programme Pupil Premium Reading Recruitment Reseach Research Schools Review RISE Teams School Catering School Leaders SchoolPro TLC Schools Security SEND Sponsor Sponsors Study Visit Summer Conference Supply Teaching Sustainability SWIFT Central Team TEACHER Teachers Teaching And Learning Teaching School Hubs The Colyton Foundation Training UPDATE

    RSS Feed

    Mailing list

    sign up to SWIFT mailing list
    Access Octomono Masonry Settings
Picture
Picture
SPONSORED BY
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

Join us, be a part of our SWIFT community

apply for membership
© COPYRIGHT 2022 SOUTH WEST INSTITUTE FOR TEACHING SWIFT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  | Website by brightblueC
 VIEW OUR PRIVACY NOTICES | VIEW OUR COURSE T&CS