Each year on 8th March, the world celebrates International Women’s Day. But, like all awareness days, the focus shouldn’t just be 24 hours. They should be embedded into our children’s curriculum and that includes looking at famous female individuals who have shaped our world.
This year’s theme is ‘Embrace Equity’ and it is important to understand the difference between equality and equity. As defined on the International Women’s Day website;
Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities.
Equity recognises that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
So what does this mean for our children?
We talk a lot about equality, how things should be fair.
But, equity ensures that everyone is entitled to acheive the same goals regardless of their age, gender, sex, sexual orientation, race or religion.
KCS had sent me their ‘Suffragettes Memorabiliia Pack and Pankhursts Poster’ ahead of International Women’s Day to share with pupils. Some children were amazed to learn that just over 100 years ago, women did not have the right to vote. The resource came with a teacher’s guide too, which was insightful to use full of lesson ideas and cross-curricular learning.
The pack came with some replica resources which I always find engaging for pupils. Our history lead, always encourages us to use historical artefacts and sources in history to help children understand the past more. The children were fascinated with the many images (which are printed on card - a huge plus for durability!) and we discussed what was happening in these photos and how the women may have felt during this time. One child said to me; ‘I think the women would be a bit worried about being arrested but they must have felt empowered too!’
We also looked at the replica membership card where we talked about what life may have been like for women during these times. We decided that even though we don’t have a suffragette group in the UK anymore, there are still some places in the world where women still do not have the same rights or opportunities as men. There was a 50/50 split when I asked, ‘would you have joined the Suffragettes to protest for women’s rights to vote?’ Torn between standing up for women’s rights and the worry of being in trouble was something they found difficult to comprehend leading to a debate!
This resource has opened up some wonderful conversations around equality and equity for women both in the past and today. We also talked about protests linking with the climate crisis and Greta Thunburg and deciding although great change has been made for women in the world - we still have a long way to go!
Here are some of the things that the children had mentioned during our discussion;
‘I think the Suffragettes are really brave!’
‘I think they would have been proud for fighting women’s rights to vote’
‘When I’m 16, I am going to vote!’
The amount of replica historical artefacts are great and varied! The children were immersed in their conversations around women’s rights to vote. This resource would be suitable for UKS2 but there is no reason why this cannot be adapted to use in KS1 and focus on Emmeline Pankhurst as a significant person, we also used the Little People Big Dreams; Emmeline Pankhurst book.
Happy International Women’s Day!
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