Case study: cross curricular project on a famous (or not so famous!) person

Please note: This article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content and references may be outdated.

If you are considering studying someone other than Florence Nightingale you have two basic options. You can either choose a local character who would be more relevant to the children, or you could study someone who you think would be an inspiration to your children. We wanted to fulfil the same historical objectives while also linking in other curriculum areas. We needed to ensure that these links were not just tenuous but had real meaning. For all of these reasons we chose Noor Inayat Khan.

You may not have heard of her, indeed none of the children or staff had! In many ways this made the project more fun as we were all learning together. The head teacher from Great Corby Primary School invited us to come in to her school to do a week long project with her staff and pupils. Initially it was just for Key Stage One pupils, but quickly developed into a whole school project. We wanted an alternative to Florence Nightingale. Noor had first come to Sue's attention through a BBC Timewatch programme. We could see the potential for linking in Religious Education (in particular Islam), Mathematics (problem solving - breaking codes) and Literacy (letters, reports, retelling Jakata tales).