D3 Activities KS3 & 4 History Drama PHSE
Natural Fools in the court of Henry Eight at Hampton Court
The Wellcome Trust who funded All the King’s Fools has provided a website www.allthekingsfools.co.uk
This site contains longer videos of the Hampton Court performance, recreating how natural fools (people with learning difficulties), at the court of Henry VIII would have gained a special relationship jesting with the king and telling him things that no one else would. The re-creation is based on historic research. Mirth was considered good for health in Tudor times and fools were respected members of Henry’s court.
All the Kings Fools (16.05) shows the performances and gives the reasons for them. Behind the Scenes (18.55) tells the story of how the performances were created http://www.allthekingsfools.co.uk/site/videos/
The sense of play which the actors had and the professional approach they brought to the work were both incredible and the shows went down extremely well. All the feedback has been very positive.
1. What is the evidence that backs up the interpretation given by the Misfits in All the King’s Fools?
2. How do you think most people with learning difficulties and disability might have been treated in Tudor times? (Examine the English Heritage Disability in Time and Place website www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/people-and…/disability-history/ ‎)
3. Watch the King’s Fools and then Behind the Scenes videos and then describe the processes the actors used to make the production.
4. What were the strengths of using a group of actors with learning difficulties?
5. Prejudice and bullying. Watch films 3,4 and 5
(http://www.hrp.org.uk/MediaPlayer/ViewPlaylist.aspx?PlaylistId=149SiteMapId=1776 ). Describe the nature and type of prejudice the actors have been subjected to in real life and what they think should be done about it.
6. What can you do to challenge such prejudice and bullying?

Category: NUT webpages, Uncategorized

D2 Natural Fools in the court of Henry Eight at Hampton Court Activities PHSE KS2
http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/educationandcommunity/hamptoncourtschools/Schoolandcollegevisits/crosscurricularresources/pshe
In 2011 Hampton Court Palace hosted a group of actors, called the Misfits, to investigate the role of the fool or jester at the Tudor court. All the performers playing the fools had learning difficulties. The education team at Hampton Court have put together a series of lessons based on this project to help you teach this little known aspect of Tudor times and to introduce a vehicle for discussion in class about learning difficulties, prejudice, discrimination and prejudice.
Lesson 1
Lesson plan and resources- Developing good relationship and respecting difference between people http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/fools1lessonplanandresources.pdf
The dynasty Portrait was Henry’s favourite made up picture including two fools
http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/the_dynasty_portrait.zip
Powerpoint giving facts that have been established about fools at the Tudor Court
http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/facts_about_fools.zip
Lesson 2
Developing good relationships and respecting the differences between people, deals with disability discrimination and stereotypes.
http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/fools2lessonplanandresources.pdf
Powerpoint- What do we mean by disability?
http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/what_do_we_mean_by_disability.zip
Prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes
http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/prejudice_discrimination_stereotype.zip
Lesson 3
Recognising and challenging stereotypes. http://www.hrp.org.uk/Resources/prejudice_discrimination_stereotype.zip
Lesson 4
Watch Videos http://www.hrp.org.uk/MediaPlayer/ViewPlaylist.aspx?PlaylistId=149&SiteMapId=1776
1.Introduction to All King’s Fools Project. 4.06 minutes.
2.All the King’s Fools About Us. 6.02 minutes.
Introduces actors in the Misfits who talk about their lives as people with learning difficulties
3. Stereotypes and bullying. 5.44 minutes.
Actors speaking about their lives and independence and other people’s attitudes.
4.’I’m forgotten’ a song by Marsail Edwards (one of the actors). 2.07minutes
Marsail sings a song she wrote and composed and explains the feelings that made her write it.
5. Poem ‘Treat me with Respect’ by Penny Lepiz (actor). 1.47 minutes
Treat me with Respect
When you have a leaning difficulty
you get called bad names
People just don’t see me
the way I really am
It makes me feel cut off
as if no one wants me around
But deep within me
I know that’s not true
I do have belief in myself
and my own self respect
If people could see who I really am
and treat me as an equal
then they would know the real me
I’m no different anyone else
I just need the respect I deserve
And the future will be OK
So think carefully before you scorn me
with your bigoted ignorant attitudes
I am a person in my own right
as others who have a learning difficulty
We should all be united as one equal
Out with prejudice
Out with ignorance
Respect and tolerance
is what we need
and this is what we are going to get
if we fight for what we want
Those who choose to remain against us
with their scorn and derision
are their own worst enemy.

Category: NUT webpages, Uncategorized

Doc5

Events Calendar 20 November-16 December 2015

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE & DO NOT REQUIRE PRE-BOOKING* 

Friday 20 November 2015 6.30-9pm: Together! 2015 Open Exhibition and Festival launch party. The Hub, 123 Star Lane, Canning Town, London E16 4PZ. Nearest DLR station: Star Lane (fully accessible). Nearest tube station: Canning Town (fully accessible). Bus routes include 69, 115, 5, 330, 300. Limited street parking. The Open Exhibition brings together work by amateur, community, semi-professional and professional disabled artists with a Newham connection. Continuing until 15 January, the galleries are open from 9am-9pm.

Saturday 21 November 2015 3.30pm: Penny Pepper: Lost in Spaces. Old Town Hall Stratford, 29 The Broadway, Stratford, London E15 4BQ. 020 3373 7033 /07791 291 685. Nearest tube, overground and DLR stations: Stratford (fully accessible). Bus routes include 25, 69, 86, D8, 104, 108, 158, 238, 241, 257, 262, 276, 308, 425, 473, N8, N86, 010, A9, 741 & UL1. Blue Badge holders can prebook parking; others are advised to use the (old) Stratford shopping centre carpark. This is the final date of the national tour of this outstanding one-woman show.

Thursday 26 November 2015 2.30pm & 7pm: Signdance Collective International open workshop (2.30pm) followed by performance of Carthage. Old Town Hall Stratford, 29 The Broadway, Stratford, London E15 4BQ. 020 3373 7033 /07791 291 685. Nearest tube, overground and DLR stations: Stratford (fully accessible). Bus routes include 25, 69, 86, D8, 104, 108, 158, 238, 241, 257, 262, 276, 308, 425, 473, N8, N86, 010, A9, 741 & UL1. Blue Badge holders can prebook parking; others are advised to use the (old) Stratford shopping centre carpark. This powerful Afro-Cuban dance-theatre work by Caridad Svich explores the subject of slavery and human trafficking and integrates sign language into the performance.

Thursday 3 December 2015 2.30pm: Street Art performance in central Stratford to celebrate International Day of Disabled People with Together! artists and Natural Diversions.

Monday 7 December 2015 7-9pm: Together! Music Club with special guests Jo-anne Cox & Walton McClaren. River Centre, Vincent Street, Canning Town, London E16 1LZ. Nearest DLR and Jubilee Line station: Canning Town (fully accessible). Nearest bus stop: Canning Town station. Street parking. The Music Club meets on the first Monday of each month.

Tuesday 8 December 2015 10am-2pm: Local History Day with Newham Disabled Reps Forum. St Mark’s Community Centre, 218 Tollgate Road, Beckton, London E6 5YA. Nearest DLR: Beckton. Nearby bus routes include the 101, 173, 262, 300 and 474. Limited Blue Badge parking.

Thursday 10 & Friday 11 December 2015 11am-3pm: Film making workshop ‘Telling a story without words’. St Luke’s Community Centre, 89 Tarling Road Canning Town London E16 1HN. Nearest tube and DLR: Canning Town (fully accessible). Bus routes: 541, 241, 325, 678, 5, 115, 276, 300, 330. Street parking. This workshop takes place as part of the Together! 2015 Disability Film Festival.

Friday 11 – Sunday 13 December 2015: Together! 2015 Disability Film Festival (6-8pm on 11 December; 12-8pm on 12 & 13 December. Old Town Hall Stratford, 29 The Broadway, Stratford, London E15 4BQ. 020 3373 7033 /07791 291 685. Nearest tube, overground and DLR stations: Stratford (fully accessible). Bus routes include 25, 69, 86, D8, 104, 108, 158, 238, 241, 257, 262, 276, 308, 425, 473, N8, N86, 010, A9, 741 & UL1. Blue Badge holders can prebook parking; others are advised to use the (old) Stratford shopping centre carpark. Visit our website www.together2012.org.uk for details of the full programme.

Wednesday 16 December 2015 2pm: Poetry workshop with Sean Burn. The Hub, 123 Star Lane, Canning Town, London E16 4PZ. Nearest DLR station: Star Lane (fully accessible). Nearest tube station: Canning Town (fully accessible). Bus routes include 69, 115, 5, 330, 300. Limited street parking.

Wednesday 16 December 2015 6.30-9pm: Closing party, with performance poetry by Sean Burn at 7pm. The Hub, 123 Star Lane, Canning Town, London E16 4PZ. Nearest DLR station: Star Lane (fully accessible). Nearest tube station: Canning Town (fully accessible). Bus routes include 69, 115, 5, 330, 300. Limited street parking.

Our usual weekly poetry and art workshops continue at The Hub on Wednesday mornings from 10.30-12 noon (poetry) and Friday afternoons from 2.4pm (drawing and painting).

For more information visit our website at www.together2012.org.uk, like us on Facebook at together2012cic, follow us on Twitter @ukdpctogether, email info@together2012.org.uk or phone 07973 252751.

*Groups of 5+ please contact us in advance to arrange reservations.

Category: 2015 Events, Uncategorized

This years 12 page broadsheet examines current portrayal in TV and Film and Past portrayal of disability.

• PDF
• Word document
• Large print version
• Text-only version
• Easy-read version

Category: 2015, Uncategorized

Press release – Delivery phase History of Place announcement FINAL

Category: News, Uncategorized

25 Nov 2014 UK Disability History Month Blogs 2014:Disability and Employment: Reconciling the Irreconcilable?

Much of Anne Borsay’s work was driven by a heightened sense of social justice, and an underlying commitment to equality for all. It is not surprising then, that one of the many things she wrote so very astutely about, was the subject of disability and employment. Some of her views on this can be elicited from her pioneering work, Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750, first published in 2005. Indeed, ten years later, in the aftermath of Lord Freud’s recent controversial questioning of disabled people’s very basic human right to the minimum wage, Anne’s words remain incredibly pertinent:

The Disabled Persons Act of 1944 was perceived as bestowing upon disabled people the right to engage with the labour market and consequently achieve full citizenship. However, the act embodied the division between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ workers.

It would seem that ever since, disability has been somewhat irrecoverably associated with unskilled work, and with employment rehabilitation centres that are orientated towards settling disabled people in manual jobs. Historically, policy has concentrated on finding fitting individuals to carry out jobs and compensating employers for taking them on.

Protesters against the planned closure of a Remploy site.

[Protesters against the planned closure of a Remploy site. Photo: Roger Blackwell on Flickr.]

In my own research on literary and cultural representations of disability in contemporary Wales, I looked closely at the prospect of securing alternative employment for disabled miners. As you might imagine, such opportunities were slim, but where they could be found, the productivity of disabled miners was closely monitored. In 1949 a study was commissioned by the government in order to ascertain the efficiency of groups of ex-miners disabled by pneumoconiosis who were then employed in the very few ‘light labour’ industries in South Wales. It was hoped that the findings would encourage more employees to provide work for these afflicted men. J. A. P. Treasure found (PDF) that such a study was difficult to conduct, not least because the efficiency of most types of labour (including coal mining) is measured directly by output. As most of the disabled men in his study were employed in light labour, store keeping and the like, they were seen as only ‘indirectly productive’. Consequently his work revolved around less-obvious measures of ‘efficiency’, including: absence from work, labour turnover, and accident rate. There is of course no necessary correlation between absence and efficiency on the job but the two are probably inversely related.

The most fascinating component of Treasure’s study, however, are the comments collated from a questionnaire that he issued to various employers of disabled ex-miners in South Wales, inviting them to comment on any aspect of these employees’ performance. For example, the manager of a factory in Porth employing three disabled miners provided pleasantly surprising feedback:

We would like to say most emphatically that these men show, in our opinion, a greater amount of keenness and interest in their work than normal men, and are most satisfactory employees in all respects.

So far, so good. However, the employers cited in Treasure’s study are shown to be particularly concerned about notions of ‘lost time’ that are accumulated by their disabled workers. Whereas one factory in Trefforest believed ‘the time lost to be practically nil’, another in Carmarthen reported that ‘the tendency was definitely more’. Overall, the survey showed average late-coming and sickness with no wanton absenteeism. One manager spat venomously that a number of his disabled employees ‘could be more gainfully employed if they could get over the fact that they are permanently ill!’

Aside from Treasure’s report, the South Wales Miners’ Library in Swansea has archived many pamphlets from the 40s and 50s about the formalities of employing disabled people, the claiming of ‘disablement’ benefits, and one very curious document published by The British Epilepsy Association in 1953. This pamphlet is much concerned with the impact and social consequences of having an epileptic fit in the workplace, saying: ‘If [a man’s] fits are infrequent or mainly nocturnal, shall he hide his disability when he presents himself for employment in the hope that he will not have a fit while at work? If this should happen, will he get the sack?’ The text goes on to express the need for more employers to be willing to employ epileptics on ‘safe’ jobs and to reserve such work for them, before listing some of the thoroughly condescending tasks that ‘epileptics can usually manage successfully’. For example: ‘French polishing, coach cleaning, store keeping and market gardening.’ Women with epilepsy are said to be capable of working in various types of domestic work ‘in hostels or hospitals.’ We are still only one generation removed from the widespread publication and dissemination of such disability-damning statements.

While the ableism, arrogance, and ignorance displayed in some of the above historical sources seems outrageous, it must be noted that even today there are marked divergences of opinion surrounding the employment of disabled people, not least within the disability rights movement itself. Such arguments normally revolve around issues of segregation from or integration with the nondisabled workforce. Nowhere can this opposition be illustrated more clearly than in the recent arguments around the closure of the Remploy factories in Abergavenny, Caerphilly, Cwmbran, Ebbw Vale, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea and Ystradgynlais between 1946 and 2013. When the last site closed, in a switch from ‘sheltered’ workshops to integrated support for people with disabilities in mainstream employment, the decision was polemically interpreted by localised disability groups, seen either as a long overdue progression from paternalist attitudes towards disability and work, or an unforgivable betrayal of people who were unlikely to find work anywhere else. What is clear that in a culture of continuing austerity where as few as 1 in 10 people with a learning disability have any kind of paid employment (a statistic that includes those working as little as one hour per week), and only 1 in 50 earn a ‘living wage’, the fight for employment equality for people with disabilities is nowhere near over. Not only was Anne Borsay one of the first to negotiate the historical and contemporary complexities of this issue in great depth, she was also one of the first to make these findings accessible to a non-specialist readership. For that reason (amongst many others) disability studies scholarship and the movement itself will forever be in her debt.

Georgia Burdett recently submitted her PhD at Swansea University on Cultural Representations of Disability in Contemporary Wales.

Borsay, Anne, Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750 (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)

The Epileptic (1953) published by The British Epilepsy Association, 156 George Street, London, W.1. Paddington 0718/9 [Available at the South Wales Miner’s Library, Swansea University, 2011]

Treasure, J. A. P., ‘A study of the efficiency of groups of ex-miners disabled by Pneumoconiosis employed in light labour industries in South Wales’, The British Journal of Medicine, 3 (1949), 127-138 (PDF)

Guest post for Disability and Industiral Society’s UK Disability History Month Blogs 2014.
http://dis-ind-soc.org.uk/en/blog.htm?id=37

Category: Uncategorized

Check out thee oprogramme pascked with interesting and relevant events to coincide with UKDisability History Month
http://www.dadafest.co.uk/2014/11/dadafest-newsletter-117-12-november-2014/

Category: Uncategorized

http://disabilitynow.org.uk/article/war-and-disability-century-conflict

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Saturday 11 October 2014 – Sunday 22 February 2015
Manchester Art Gallery
Mosley Street Manchester M2 3JL

The Sensory War 1914-2014
This major group exhibition marking the Centenary of the First World War explores how artists have communicated the impact of military conflict on the body, mind, environment and human senses between 1914 and 2014.

The show examines how artists from 1914 onwards depicted the devastating impact of new military technologies utilised in a century of conflict beginning with the First World War. It brings together work from a range of leading artists including Henry Lamb, CRW Nevinson, Paul Nash, Otto Dix, Nancy Spero, Richard Mosse, Omer Fast and features paintings and drawings by the hibakusha; survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima which were created in the 1970s and are being shown in the UK for the first time.

The First World War involved a profound re-configuration of sensory experience and perception through the invention of devastating military technologies, which destroyed human lives and altered the environment beyond recognition. Its legacy has continued and evolved through even more radical forms of destruction over the last hundred years. Throughout the century, artists have struggled to understand the true effect of modern technological warfare. While military and press photography have brought a new capacity to coldly document such lethal displays, artists found a different way of seeing.

Manchester Art Gallery has a nationally important collection of art of the First World War, which was assembled by its first director, Lawrence Haward. Taking this rich collection as the starting point, this show includes historic and contemporary art from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, New Zealand, Algeria, Ireland, Iran, Israel and Palestine.

Open Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm
Late night opening on Thursday until 9pm

Category: 2015 Events, Uncategorized