In this lesson pupils examine ‘national’ commemorations, before moving on to explore some local forms of commemoration.

Launch

• Introduce pupils to different types of commemoration – See Resource 3 for examples.
• Discuss the special ways in which a country remembers its dead.
• Teacher guides discussion by selecting some examples of commemorating the dead in national tragedies and the public commemorations which follow them, for example,
  • the anniversary of the 1988 Lockerbie air crash or
  • the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
• Pupils use the images to explore how some commemorations are celebrated publicly by whole countries and how these are sometimes called national commemorations, for example,
  • National Memorial Day in the US held on last Monday in May,
  • Holocaust Memorial Day on 26th January each year .
• Ask pupils to suggest examples of other national days (e.g. May Day).
• Draw attention to the fact that these commemorations are public and openly celebrated by everyone in the country.
• Can pupils suggest other forms of public or national commemorations, e.g
  • the Hillsborough disaster commemorated in September 2012 in Liverpool, 23 years after the event.

By the end of the launch stage children will have made a list of five or six examples of national commemorations.

Activities

• Teacher circulates a set of fourA4 topic cards to each group and explains the role of NGOs such as Oxfam or Amnesty International.
• Children are asked to arrange each one of the commemorations from their list under one of the topic cards.
• Each group then shares their ideas and begins to look for links between them.
  • Was there anything that the children found surprising?
  • Which of the four cards had the shortest list and why?
  • Which one had the longest list? Can pupils suggest why?

Debrief

• What have they found out about commemorations in other countries?
• Did the activity help them to understand how commemorations are organised?
• Do they feel national commemorations can be a good way for a country to remember certain events and people?
• Should a national commemoration take place immediately after an event and how long should it be celebrated for?
• Who should decide what a county commemorates?
• Suggest words and phrases which describe a national commemoration. The agreed list might be displayed in the classroom.