Windrush and the making of Modern Britain

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• LessonUp
• PSHE
• +2
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)
• Lower Secondary (Key Stage 3)
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• BTEC, GCSE

Introductie

Hello and welcome to this lesson on Windrush and the Making of Modern Britain. This one is very much an audiovisual experience, with lots of images, videos and music. Hope you and your learners enjoy it!

Instructies

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Hello and welcome to this lesson all about Windrush and the making of Modern Britain.

Aims and objectives 

Some context to set up the video slide. 

Video slide. The news reel opens briefly with Alfred Hitchcock talking to Ingrid Bergman, but quickly moves on to Windrush.

It sometimes helps to remind 21st century students Pathe showed newsreels in British cinemas!

A

1938

B

1948

C

1958

D

1968

A

To help rebuild after World War Two

B

To escape persecution

C

As a holiday

D

To study

Archive video from 1974 interviews.

Calypso

a musical style of West Indian origin, influenced by jazz, usually having topical, often improvised, lyrics. This example is by Lord Kitchener, who appeared in the Pathe news item on an earlier slide!

MUSIC

Brief overviews of the genre of music, with an example. 

You could link these to modern genres the cool kids all listen to, such as your grime and your Hip Hop.......

Reggae

A style of music with a strongly accented subsidiary beat, originating in Jamaica. Reggae evolved in the late 1960s from ska and other local variations on calypso and rhythm and blues, and became widely known in the 1970s through the work of Bob Marley; its lyrics are much influenced by Rastafarian ideas.

MUSIC

Brief overviews of the genre of music, with an example. 

You could link these to modern genres the cool kids all listen to, such as your grime and your Hip Hop.......

Ska

Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterised by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat.

MUSIC

Brief overviews of the genre of music, with an example. 

You could link these to modern genres the cool kids all listen to, such as your grime and your Hip Hop.......

West Indian Cuisine

Jerk chicken, plantains, patties - food so widespread in the UK that you can find West Indian influences from high end restaurants to national chains, supermarkets and service stations!

FOOD

This slide makes me hungry!

SPORT

Sports Legends of West Indian Origin

There are so many British sports superstars of West Indian origin! Pictured here are just a selection (from left to right) Viv Anderson, first black footballer to play for England Frank Bruno, former World champion boxerDina Asher Smith, sprinter - as of 2025, fastest British woman

Biggest problem here was just too many sports stars to name! 

You could easily turn these slides into group discussions with further examples if you wished!

NHS

Health Heroes

Many Windrush migrants worked in the NHS as nurse, porters and doctors. There was a shortage of 54,000 nurses in 1948 when the NHS was founded. Windrush migrants were vital in building this British institution. 

More emphasis on the vital role Windrush migrants made in building the NHS.

Background

Many Windrush descendents were wrongly detained, denied healthcare, or deported.

It would be remiss not to include a slide on this. A channel 4 news feature on the Windrush scandal of 2018. 

A

True

B

False

A

NHS

B

Fashion

C

Farming

D

Banking

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