Remembering Your East End - Health and Welfare

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	Key Stage 1 Key Stage 3 Featured Responses

Aneurin Bevan, Secretary of State for Health, who spearheaded the introduction of the National Health Service on
5th July 1948

Photographs in this section show the living conditions in the East End before WW2. They reflect the slum conditions many families lived in with very limited access to health care. The contrasts with the picture after the NHS was introduced are clear. This is made clear by the quotes from East End residents. There are strong links to be made to the school's Healthy Eating policy and overall health and fitness. In particular, the idea that the rationing led to improved life expectacy in young children.
KEY STAGE 3 SCIENCE scheme of work Year 8 Unit 8C: Microbes and Disease
In this unit pupils explore the causes of common diseases and how they can be controlled. Their ideas will reflect their homes and they will have a very limited idea of how recent these standards are. The photographs of slum dwellings show how many people lived a century ago. The quotes are all from people alive now so they show how rapid the change has been.
Section 10 D: How can we protect ourselves against infectious diseases?
Objectives Children should learn: to identify patterns in data from secondary sources and to try to explain them to organise facts/ ideas/ information in an appropriate sequence
Activities Provide pupils with secondary data on the incidence of a major childhood disease, eg diphtheria from 1910 to 1955 in a city location. Ask them to relate patterns to the introduction of immunisation and the start of a free health service . Ask pupils to find out about programmes of routine immunisations using reference materials, ICT and the internet. Use the information to write a magazine article about the advantages and disadvantages of routine immunisations.	Outcomes Children: Describe how the incidence of, eg diphtheria, varied over the period and relate changes to social changes, eg the introduction of immunisation. Present a point of view in writing, using statistical evidence and linking points persuasively.
There are several quotes that portray life before the NHS and how limited the treatments were. Gloria Lacey and Bertha Cohen’s quote brings out the cost to poor families was considerable. The living conditions described by Cyril Hillier and Gloria Lacey are worse than most pupils will now experience and the lack of effective treatments will need to be pointed out. The many charitable organisations for poor families were often the only alternative and Caroline Wheeler explains the shame felt by her mother in needing to beg for food.
KEY STAGE 3 SCIENCE scheme of work Year 9 Unit 9B: Fit and Healthy
Pupils are likely to have very varied ideas about fitness and health mainly drawn from advertising. The collection and analysis of material should show how the current situation is very different from the one the NHS was set up to improve.
Section 12: Are we healthier than our great-grandparents were?
The quotes and photographs give a picture of life before and during the war. They can be used to research different aspects eg. Diet, adequacy and range of nutrients, treatments for illness, access, cost and effectiveness of living conditions, access to sanitation, overcrowding, vermin and damp. Objectives Children should learn: to ask different sorts of questions to extend thinking and refine ideas to identify what information is needed, then use different sources to evaluate conflicting evidence to arrive at a considered viewpoint
Activities Ask pupils to consider the question and to suggest how it could be turned into further questions that could be investigated and the sources of information that might be used. Agree, with the class, questions that individuals or groups could investigate and the sources of data each might use. Discuss, eg as a debate, the evidence for and against the idea that we are healthier than our great-grandparents were, helping pupils to identify the key points and to evaluate the strength of conflicting evidence.	Outcomes Children: Produce supplementary questions relating to different aspects of an original question. Assemble evidence to answer the question. Decide whether the evidence supports or does not support the idea, and give reasons for their decision.
KEY STAGE 3 HISTORY scheme of work Year 9 Unit 20: Twentieth-century medicine. How has it changed the lives of people?
The quotes give a picture of the East End as a place of disease. The contrast between the lives of children 70- 80 years ago is clearly outlined. A family could be constructed using photographs and quotes from the panel for comparison with a family in 2000.
Section 1: Better health - longer life: Why?
Objectives Children should learn: about the place medicine, in its broadest definition, plays and has played in their lives that people today are generally healthier than people 100 years ago about the reasons why certain diseases and conditions are no longer life-threatening to make joint decisions about the ways in which information should be presented
Activities Brainstorm what keeps pupils well and on the role doctors, hospitals and medicine play in our lives, eg vaccination, diet, drains and toilets, check-ups by school nurse, appendectomies and tonsillectomies, setting a broken wrist, straightening crooked teeth, spectacles. Pupils suggest categories and order these attributes, eg medicine, surgery, public health, preventative medicine. Introduce two families in Britain: parents and children in 1900 and parents and children in 2000. Locate the families in appropriate houses and locations. Produce a list of diseases and conditions, ranging from short sight, coronary artery disease and kidney failure through to diphtheria, polio, typhoid, tuberculosis, scarlet fever and measles. Working in groups, pupils decide which family member (1900 and 2000) will have, or be threatened by, which illnesses and conditions. It might be appropriate to give a range of different illnesses and conditions to different groups of pupils. Pupils research the likely outcomes and provide reasons for these. Pupils decide on the most appropriate way of presenting their findings to the whole class. This could be via drama, ICT, interview, wall display or talk. Return to the categories that emerged from the original brainstorming session, and explain how the various outcomes and their reasons all relate to these specific categories.	Outcomes Children: Identify and exemplify categories of medicine. Describe ways in which healthy living and life expectancy have changed between 1900 and 2000. Explain why certain diseases and conditions disabled and killed in 1900 and not in 2000. Select and organise their knowledge of the reasons why people are healthier in 2000 than they were in 1900.
Section 2: Free at the point of delivery?
Pupils take the NHS for granted and most will have very little idea of the problems the cost of the doctor caused. Quotes such as Bertha Cohen’s show this. The role of charities in health care for poor families is shown in Cyril Hillier’s quote. The quotes show the attitude of those whose lives and life expectancy were transformed by it. The photograph of Bevan provides a focus for the interviewing activity. Objectives Children should learn: about the ways in which the Liberal governments at the beginning of the twentieth century tried to improve health and welfare to explain the reasons for the setting up of a National Health Service after the Second World War and the ways in which it was set up to analyse and explain the widely differing views amongst doctors and the general public about the provision of a National Health Service to phrase appropriate questions about problems that were encountered in setting up the National Health Service
Activities Remind pupils of the situation of the 1900 family. How did they gain access to medicine and surgery? Tell pupils about the Liberal governments at the beginning of the twentieth century and the reforms made relating to the provision of health and welfare. Pupils, using textbooks and other points of reference as appropriate, draw up a grid showing the reforms, who paid for them and who benefited from them. Move to the 2000 family. How did they gain access to medicine and surgery? Tell pupils about William Beveridge and the setting up of the National Health Service in 1948 by the newly elected Labour Government. Provide pupils with a range of source material relating to the provision of a 'free' health service. Pupils analyse them as indicative of contemporary attitudes on the part of doctors and the general public to the setting up of the National Health Service. Pupils prepare to interview Aneurin Bevan by drawing up a list of questions they would like to ask him about problems, pitfalls and successes in setting up the National Health Service. In the role of Bevan, answer pupils' questions and then ask them to note responses. Introduce the issue of how this new National Health Service was to be funded. Provide figures for contributions and expenditure. Was it likely that the service could continue to be free at point of delivery? Tell pupils that Bevan resigned from the Cabinet in 1951 in protest at the introduction of prescription charges. Pupils use information about the setting up of the National Health Service to produce a summary poster of the views of the supporters or opponents.	Outcomes Children: Select and organise their knowledge of the Liberal reforms at the beginning of the twentieth century. Evaluate and use sources of information critically to reach supported conclusions about setting up the National Health Service. Conduct an interview and compile notes about the problems encountered by Aneurin Bevan in setting up the National Health Service. Ask different sorts of questions to extend thinking and refine ideas.
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