Learning Objectives

• Pupils to recognise that feelings were a mixture of hard reality and optimism during this period.
• They should be able to explain that the closer 1953 approached, the more hopeful people in Britain were feeling.
• This link between the Queen's coronation and hope for the future should be clear by the end of this session.

 

Possible teaching objectives

• Pupils are to draw a timeline across the middle of a large sheet of sugar paper. Then plot each year from 1945 (the end of the War) to 1953 (coronation year).
• Above the line is HOPE for the future, below the line is HARDSHIP.
• Using both sets of cards, pupils plot them firstly in chronological order. (Some of them might be difficult to plot since they are general or do not have a specific year. Encourage pupils to think how they might show this on their timeline.)
• Secondly, arrange cards either above or below the line depending on how much they think the card would show hope for the future or hardship. e.g. Would bomb damaged housing have the same feeling of hardship as post war feeling of exhaustion?
• Discuss these timelines with class. What comments, observations can they make? The teacher could plot a collective timeline for the whole class representing the steady improvement in national feeling as a gradient leading a representative British cartoon person climbing to reach Everest in 1953.

 

 

• Collect in cards in envelopes and clear desks.
• Before ending the session, show them the film footage clip of the Queen's coronation procession from 1953 and single out one person in the crowd.Talk over the film footage asking rhetorical questions such as, ‘Imagine this is you...You have your little flag with you...It is raining but you don't care... What can you see?... What can you hear?... What is going on around you?... What has been happening in your life during the past few years?... What are you feeling?... What are you hoping?... Why are you hoping these things?'.

 

 

• Following on immediately ask, ‘Can I interview three people from the crowd?' Ask again if no volunteers. Pupils should begin to realise you want to hot seat them. Choose carefully your three volunteers as a tangential or attention-seeking response could jeopardise the desired effect.
• Take on the role of a BBC reporter covering the coronation procession. Using a prop such as a hat, spectacles, scarf or coat can add to the effect. Add a little introduction like, "On this very special day we're standing at Trafalgar Square where people have camped out all night to catch a glimpse of the new Queen." Then moving over to one of your volunteers, ask leading questions like the ones you asked during the film footage. This can be prolonged for as long and enthusiastically as your volunteers are willing to ad lib.
• Ask the question before the end of this session, "What were people thinking about this Elizabethan Age?"

 

Learning outcomes

• Pupils should now be able to see that life, at least the feeling that life was beginning to improve the closer you get to 1953.
• The timing of the coronation was bound up with feelings of optimism and hope for the future.

 

Resources:

• Sets of positive and negative cards used previously.
• Sugar paper.
• Archive film clip of the 1953 coronation.