Lesson video

- Hi everyone and welcome to our lesson today.

I'm really looking forward to this lesson because we're going to be developing our understanding of what life was like for people who had travelled over on the Windrush when they arrived in Britain.

Today's learning objective is to further develop our knowledge of the historical context of the unit.

This is lesson four of 15 and it's our second writing outcome.

In this lesson, you will need your exercise book or paper, your pen or pencil, and your best learning brain.

Take a moment to go and get anything that you need.

So, today's learning agenda.

First of all, we are going to recap what we have learned about the Windrush so far.

Then we are going to develop our vocabulary.

And finally, we're going to deepen our knowledge about what challenges the Windrush generation faced when they arrived in Britain.

So, let's begin by recapping what we have learned so far.

So here are some images which we've already seen before at the beginning of our Windrush unit.

I would like you to mind map what you have learned so far about the Windrush.

This might take a few minutes.

So pause the video and press play once you're finished.

Okay, everyone.

So here's my mind map of what I have learned so far in this unit.

So, what happened in 1948, the Windrush brought many ex-RAF or Royal Air Force service people from Jamaica to England.

These people were given the opportunity to move with their families to Britain.

The aim was to rebuild Britain post-World War II or after World War II.

There were 492 immigrants who travelled on the Windrush.

And that idea of immigration, meaning to move permanently to another country.

And the immigrants were encouraged to travel to the UK.

They were promised good opportunities and prosperity.

Meaning they would have really good standards of living and their quality of life would be really high.

So, now we're going to learn a little more key vocabulary.

Racism, your turn.

Can you define the term racism.

Say out loud what you think racism means.

Well done everyone.

So, racism is discrimination or hatred against someone because of their race.

Prejudice, your turn.

I've got a little image to help you understand what prejudice is.

Prejudice is to negatively pre-judge a person or a group of people based on no facts or evidence.

Does it seem fair to show prejudice towards groups of people based on no fact or evidence yes or no? Is that fair? No, it doesn't seem fair to me either.

Discrimination, your turn.

Well done.

So, the unfair treatment of different groups of people.

And finally the pardner system, your turn.

So we're gonna learn a little bit more about the pardner system throughout this writing unit.

It was a system to collectively save money as a group.

So, kind of pairing up with lots of friends or family members to save money as a group of people rather than trying to save money all on your own.

So, we are going to now deepen our knowledge of the historical context of what life was like for the Windrush generation.

Now, when I say Windrush generation, I mean the people, the migrants who travelled over to Britain on the Windrush in 1948.

We refer to those people as the Windrush generation.

So, let's talk a little bit about what the housing situation was like for those people.

Here we've got an image.

Where do you think this man is? Have some thinking time.

I can see he's got suitcases around him, I can see there's another person in the corner of the picture, looks quite cramped, looks quite crowded.

When the Windrush arrived in England in 1948 there was no accommodation for people to stay in.

So that word accommodation just means somewhere to stay overnight.

So there was nowhere for these people to sleep that night.

Many of the West Indian immigrants had nowhere to sleep.

The government said that they could use an air raid shelter in Clapham Common that had been built during the war as a temporary home.

So, we know that the Windrush generation, they travelled over from the West Indies just after the war had finished.

So there were still air raid shelters in London and they weren't being used anymore.

So, the government said, well, they can stay and sleep in those unused air raid shelters instead.

236 of the passengers on the Windrush spent their first days in Britain living in this huge tunnel.

So that's actually more than half of the people who were on the Windrush.

236 people living in a tunnel.

And lots of them stayed there for not just one night but actually up to a few weeks.

How do you think it would've felt to have been sleeping in this huge tunnel with 236 other people after you've just done a 30 day trip on a boat? Do you think this would've been a positive experience or a negative experience? One, two, three, show me.

I agree.

I think this would've been a really negative experience from the people who had just made this huge journey across the ocean.

- Let's read more about the Windrush.

Arrival in Britain.

Passengers on the Empire Windrush were excited.

The British government had invited those who had joined the forces during World War II to come and help rebuild Britain after the war.

Those coming from Jamaica were leaving a country that had a struggling economy and had been devastated by a hurricane that destroyed the plantations.

Jamaicans had read stories about beautiful and prosperous Britain.

They were promised work and accommodation.

Sadly, they did not get the welcome they were expecting.

At this time most British people were white.

Most had never even met a black person before.

Many British people were unkind.

They ignored the new arrivals and made them feel isolated.

British people did not want to rent rooms to black people.

And they turned them away from shops and churches.

Finding a job was also a struggle.

Many Jamaicans took jobs cleaning or on building sites and were not paid well.

- Now, if we think back to that key vocabulary that we looked at, at the start of this lesson, to treat someone unkindly or with hatred based on their race.

Can you remember what that word is? What's that term? Well done.

Racism.

So lots of the Windrush passengers experienced racism from the people who already lived in Britain at the time.

And here's just an image of what London looked like at the time when the Windrush passengers arrived there.

So as you can see, parts of London were still completely destroyed from the aftermath of the war.

So that meant that lots of people were living in poverty.

Lots of people lived in really poor living conditions.

They didn't have very much money.

So, life was very difficult for a lot of people at the time.

KBW stood for Keep Britain White.

So this is an example of a racist slogan, which was graffitied on a wall where lots of the West Indian immigrants lived.

How do you think they would've felt to walk past that graffiti every day? Perhaps you would like to mind map some of the vocabulary that you're thinking about right now because we're going to need to use that later on.

Personally, I would've felt really upset, humiliated, and disappointed, and perhaps a little bit foolish for being so excited to come to a country and meet the people who live there, only for those people to treat me in such a racist and unkind and prejudiced way.

Now we know from earlier on in our unit that lots of people decided to move to Britain because they couldn't find jobs in Jamaica even though they were skilled and they had been trained as professionals.

So they decided to move to Britain because they had been told that they would have better job opportunities over there.

Can you imagine how disappointing that must have been for those people when they arrived in Britain, and realised that their qualifications weren't recognised or often racist employers didn't want to give them jobs.

So, now we're gonna go back to a song which we had looked at a little bit earlier in this unit.

"London Is the Place For Me." Now, unfortunately, we're not going to listen to it again but we are going to read the lyrics together.

I'm going to read them and you can always pause the video if you would like some more time to reread them yourself.

London is the place for me.

London, this lovely city.

You can go to France or America, India, Asia, or Australia but you must come back to London city.

Well, believe me, I am speaking broadmindedly.

I am glad to know my mother country.

I have been travelling to countries years ago but this is the place I wanted to know.

London, that is the place for me.

To live in London, you are really comfortable.

Because the English people are very much sociable.

They take you here, and they take you there, and they make you feel like a millionaire.

London, that's the place for me.

Now let's think about Lord Kitchener's lyrics versus the reality that lots of the West Indians faced when they arrived in Britain.

How do West Indians experiences of London compare to what Lord Kitchener's song suggested life would be like? And by West Indians, I mean, the people who travelled over from the West Indies on the Windrush.

So, have some thinking time and you can jot some ideas down if you would like to.

And press play when you're finished.

Okay, so hopefully you shared some ideas about how there were two very different contrasts here.

So people travelling on the Windrush were feeling so hopeful.

And I know in one of your Mrs Wordsmith lessons in this unit, you're going to be talking about hopeful words because people travelled from Jamaica to Britain expecting a better life, better jobs, better experiences for their families and going to the mother country was so exciting for them to go to the heart of the Commonwealth and the British Empire.

Especially after so many of those people had served for Britain in the war by helping in the Royal Air force.

But then when they arrived there they didn't get what they expected.

So they really struggled to find somewhere to live, they did not have the job opportunities that they were expecting, and they faced a lot of racism and discrimination from the people who lived in England at the time.

Okay, everybody, well done for all of your hard work.

I know we've just had a lot of information in this lesson.

Now it's really important that we understand the challenges that were faced by everyone in Britain at that time.

And particularly the challenges faced by the Windrush passengers.

We're going to need to use this understanding in the rest of our unit, so that we can write a letter as a passenger on the Windrush.

Writing about their experiences of Britain so far and how those experiences have made them feel.

Well done for all of your hard work, and I'm really looking forward to our next lesson together.