Commonwealth involvement and treatment during WW2

This KS3 lesson should take at least one hour to complete. The Power Point leads students through all activities and accompanying resources are all included.

Aims and Objectives:

• To know what the Commonwealth was/is.
• To know the type of work carried out by Commonwealth members during the war.
• To understand why Commonwealth members signed up.
• To reach a judgement on how well people from different races were treated during the war.

Activities include a starter which defines the Commonwealth and asks students to memorise countries from a map against the clock before playing last man standing. A series of sources are then used to list the reasons why Commonwealth members signed up. There are three versions, including a simpler SEN version and a subsequent version which involves highlighting instead of writing. After watching the BBC newsreel “West Indies Calling” to note done the range of jobs carried out by members of the Commonwealth, we then analyse their treatment using a series of source cards. We test the hypothesis “Commonwealth members faced racism during WW2” by arranging them from agree to disagree. Consideration is also given as to whether relations improved. This leads into the final verdict on whether the BBC newsreel was being truthful about the treatment of Commonwealth members during the war.