To celebrate Black History Month, this week Year 1 took part in some special history lessons. In lesson 1, the children began by acknowledging how lucky they are to live in a world surrounded by so much diversity. They shared family links to countries around the world, before carrying out some research to find out about them. The children found out that we have multiple children in our class who share links to the same country; they thoroughly enjoyed talking about their cultures and sharing similarities and differences.
In lesson 2, Year 1 went on to discover facts about the remarkable life of John Blanke, a Black trumpeter who served at the courts of King Henry VII and King Henry VIII in the early 16th century. They found out that John Blanke was called a free man because he was paid a salary that he could keep for himself. Some children thought that John Blanke must have been a brave man because he told the King that his 8p-a-day salary wasn’t enough. Luckily for him, his request was listened to and the King doubled his daily salary to 16p!
