Teacher's Corner

Belonging - A Cross-curriculum Learning Experience for Key Stage 3

Belonging is a project designed to enable young people to explore intercultural dialogue. Devised by Manifesta in association with the Runnymede Trust, the project organized a series of video workshops in suburban locations with young people from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds - in London (Newham), Lisbon (Casal da Boba) and Paris (20th arrondissement).

Chosen for their distinctive nature, each location has its own local history. Focusing on themes around migration, identities and the making of new communities, Belonging explored how young people talk about belonging - how migration over time shapes communities, and how young people understand their identities and relationships to each other while having roots and backgrounds related to more than one place. Please click here to access the context files which provide maps and a historical overview of the locations as well as more photos of each location.

Working with creative video artists and film-makers in small groups, each participant made his/her own film on the subject of his/her choice. The 43 short films which resulted from the workshops provide a valuable insight into the thoughts of young people in urban and suburban contexts today.

Two experienced teachers and curriculum writers, Professor Chris Gaine and Cristina Bennett, have devised the lesson plans contained in this publication, with additional advice from Tracy Barker. The lesson plans use some of the Belonging films as well as information about the areas in the suburbs of London, Paris and Lisbon that form the backdrop for them.

Using the lessons

This series of lessons has been specifically designed to accompany a selection of the Belonging films. Together, the film selection and the lessons, provide a broad cross-curriculum experience for young people as they approach the end of Key Stage 3.

In order to make the most of the learning opportunities these lessons provide, you are strongly advised to watch all the films, plan collaboratively with teachers in other curriculum areas and consider the dynamics in teaching groups.

The learning and teaching principles that underlie all the lessons in the Belonging series are derived from the QCA National Curriculum cross-curriculum dimensions, global dimension key concepts, and personal, learning and thinking skills. For quick reference, these dimensions and skills are listed on the left-hand side of each detailed lesson plan; those appearing in emboldened text are the main dimensions, concepts and skills underpinning the whole series. To make each A4 lesson plan easy to view, simply enlarge to A3.

Through this series of lessons, you can introduce, or further build, cross-curriculum dimensions into your school:

  • as part of a special focus week around a theme of Identity and Cultural Diversity, Community Cohesion or Global Dimension;
  • as a cross-curriculum scheme of work linking citizenship, English and humanities subjects through the common topic of Belonging.u

The teaching sequence opens with the Citizenship lesson; this should be followed by each of the other three subjects. Whether you start with English, history or geography depends on how you wish to organize the work to provide a broad cross-curriculum experience. However, within each subject area, the lessons are designed to be followed in a particular learning sequence.

For each lesson, specific learning intentions are included; these are directly linked to the learning outcomes for each single lesson, as well as for each sequence of subject specific lessons.


Please click here to download the full booklet.

More information is available on the Runnymede Trust website.
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