Author(s): Rosie Sheldrake and Dale Banham.

Source: Teaching History, Issue 129, December 2007, Pages 39-47.
This 9-page article focuses on integrating local migration history into the Key Stage 3 curriculum.  In this particular instance, the Ipswich Caribbean Association (ICA) produced a DVD featuring interviews of local migrants from the Caribbean to Britain.  This DVD was then used in classrooms as an educational aid to enhance students' learning experiences.  In one classroom the students were given the assignment of taking on the role of a law firm that was trying to assemble a case to save the ICA's building from closure.  Through the DVD and a visit from ICA's Chairman, students learned of the significance of this organization to the migrants and the community as a whole.  A second classroom used a different approach and examined why people left the Caribbean and their experiences once they arrived in Britain.  Listening to the personal interviews had a deeper impact on the students and they were able to understand better the lives of these migrants. 

In the article Sheldrake and Banham state that the DVD interviews proved to be an invaluable resource.  The DVD interviews taught the students more about migrants' lives in the Caribbean and in Britain more than they would have learned reading about it in a textbook.  By integrating the local Ipswich Caribbean history into the curriculum it engaged students at a higher level than if they were to learn about a more distant immigration story that they feel no connection to.

The key issues identified are the difficulties of incorporating immigration into the history curriculum and engaging students in learning about diversity.  Often immigration is viewed in sections as specific events in history, but immigration/migration to Britain has been happening since the beginning and has existed up through today.  Diversity should be included in everyday history lessons and not just during units of slavery or the Black History Month of October and the challenge for teachers is how to do this meaningfully.

The article concludes by explaining that identity and diversity should be involved in all subjects in the school curriculum and students should be given the chance to examine their own community's dynamics.  Sheldrake and Banham note the importance of school links with community groups to help offer the students experiences that resources like the ICA DVD interviews can give them.  And finally, it is stressed that immigration at the local and national levels should be taught over the entirety of history.

For further information, please see the full text of the article 'Seeing a different picture: exploring migration through the lens of history' in Teaching History, Issue 129, December 2007, Pages 39-47.