News

On the 18^th March 2022, a Year 8 History class began their new unit of work, the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The unit allows students to investigate and explain the workings of the slave trade in Africa, the Caribbean, America and Europe. From the selling and trading of slaves, the appalling conditions during the Middle Passage, the horrific treatment of the enslaved while in America and the Caribbean, and how the abolitionists worked towards abolishing the Slave Trade in 1807.

This lesson saw 8M5 look at a selection of spices in groups and to try and work out where in the world they come from. Although spices such as nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves, as well as other produce like sugar and cotton can be produced in other parts of the world, they all have a story in the Caribbean.

Not only did this first lesson bring a lot of excitement and intrigue to the students, but it also brings a topic from history into the present. To use the cliché phrase, "the past always shapes the present" it allows students to make connections to the wider global world, explore relationships of racism today and the misconceptions some may have about Africa and slavery.

This was highlighted further when students were making cultural connections with their own heritage based on food or historical moments in their own history.