Free learning resources from arts, cultural and heritage organisations.

Teachers Notes

Resource created by Leeds Museums and Galleries | Abbey House Museum.

Please plan carefully for discussions and activities focused on campaign and protest. Sensitive and controversial issues are likely to be raised by your pupils and you will need to be prepared to deal with these openly and democratically. There are several supporting websites listed to support planning, teaching and learning.

 

A Global View

Leonara Cohen joined the WSPU (the Suffragette movement) in 1909. Also in this year, over 20,000 Armenian Christians were massacred in the province of Adana by Ottoman Turks, who feared they would start an uprising. In New York, America, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) was formed, a major civil rights organisation which still exists today and fights for racial equality. In Panama, workers began pouring concrete for the construction of the Panama Canal, an important artificial waterway allowing ships to sail from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean without journeying around South America.

 

Curriculum Links

  • KS2 History: Significant local person, events. Theme extending knowledge beyond 1066
  • KS2 English: Planning, drafting and writing; Reading aloud; Listening; Evaluating and debating
  • KS2 PSHE: Relationships, Rights, Responsibilities, Community and Global Citizenship
  • SMSC: British Values

 

Activity Ideas

  • Explore more about Suffragettes and the suffrage movement in this interactive image.
  • Find out about other protests and campaigns in Leeds over the last 100 years. Explore the reasons for the campaign/protest.
    • How effective were these campaigns and protests?
    • What changed as a result of the campaign/protest?
  • Debate: Is it ever ok for protesters to use direct action or violence as a means of trying to get their way?
    • Why / Why not?
  • Create your own Campaigners of Leeds timeline. 
  • Split the class into groups according to eye colour and tell them that some can vote for what they want for school dinners and some can’t or something similar. Ask them how it feels not to be able to vote?
    • Why is it important to vote?
    • How would you feel if you weren’t allowed to vote once you are 18?
  • Look at the newspaper report from Leeds Mercury, Monday July 27, 1908. This newspaper report gives one version of what happened and what was said during the speeches on Woodhouse Moor.
    • What do you think are the main messages from the speeches?
    • How can we find out whether this is a true representation of what was said by the Suffragettes?
    • Find out about the lives of some of the other suffragettes who are mentioned in the report.
  • When she was 100 Leonora said “One hopes… that women of the future will organise themselves into groups or unions and that they will use the vote intelligently to ensure that we will have the very highest standards of womanhood ”. What do you think she meant? Why is it so important to vote?
  • Create your own newspaper report on one suffragette led event or speech that happened in Leeds.
  • What did Queen Victoria say about the suffragettes? Make a comparison between Queen Victoria, Leonora Cohen and a Victorian Factory worker.
    • How did their lives differ, how were they similar?
  • Think about something that you think is unfair in your life at the moment. Is it something that other children are experiencing?
    • List the reasons that it is unfair or unjust?
    • What would your ideal solution be?
    • Would your solution make life fairer for everyone involved, including adults? Discuss this issue as a group and gather different opinions.
    • How could you develop an effective campaign to get your opinions heard?
  • Create your own Campaign. Think of an issue that you are passionate about and that needs support. What are the best ways of getting your opinions heard?
    • What evidence do you need to present?
    • How will you present it?
    • What’s your message and how will you get your message heard?
    • What brand, design and materials will you use? …Think about visual, spoken, written communications including Poetry, Song, Film, Photography, Research, Speeches, Debates, Social Media, Leaflets, Newspapers….
  • How important is it to vote?
    • Why?
    • How can we encourage more people to vote?