Black history resources for home schooling

School resources (Powerpoint slides and Word documents) developed from the Colonial Countryside project are now available free to parents for use in home schooling.

Aimed at Years 5-8, these resources were produced for the National Trust by the Colonial Countryside project and a team of historians led by Miranda Kaufmann, who wrote Black Tudors. The lessons are designed to address a gap in knowledge about country houses’ links to the British empire. They were written by history teacher and author Dan Lyndon-Cohen.

No prior knowledge is required on the part of the parents and you can go through the slides, working though the exercises together with your child. The answers to any questions that are asked are all there and no additional resources are required. The idea is to teach British colonial history through a local history lens. This will make it more meaningful for your child.

The resources are based on five National Trust properties and their collections:

Buckland Abbey, Devon 

These lessons are about black Tudors and linked to the history of Buckland Abbey and the story of Diego, the African circumnavigator who sailed with Francis Drake.

Charlecote Park, the Midlands

These lessons are about the “Indian Mutiny” or first war of Indian independence and also about the identity of a black page in a portrait which hangs in the main hall.

Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire

Kedleston was the home of Curzon, Viceroy of India, and these resources are about India, colonial rule and independence.

Penrhyn Castle, Wales

Penrhyn Castle was home to the Pennant family, which owned Jamaican sugar plantations for 100s of years. The lessons are about transatlantic slavery, mostly in relation to Jamaica and then moving to Wales to understand how this slavery connection reshaped North Wales.

Speke Hall, Liverpool

These materials teach pupils all about Africa before the slave-trade, African resistance and transatlantic slavery, gradually moving closer to Liverpool to understand its involvement with slavery.