Posted on: January 30th 2015
I got very excited the other day about a £2 coin that was given as part of my change in a shop. It was incredibly shiny and as I pulled it out to pay for something, I noticed this and stopped myself from giving it away. Curious as to its sheen, I examined it more closely and was very excited to note that it was quite an important and significant coin…
This was how I began my assembly a couple of weeks ago, because I truly had got very excited by this coin that had an image of General Kitchener on the back, commemorative of the centenary of WWI. I wondered how I could incorporate this into an assembly and it got me thinking about what we actually knew about who was on the back of our legal tender and where it was all made.
As usual, it took me a few hours to research and put my presentation together (I was surprised at how little I knew about the historic figures on the back of the notes) but I really enjoyed doing this and was impressed actually between the children how much they did actually get! Tabitha in Form 3 commented that Elizabeth Fry (on the back of the £5 note) was something to do with prisons, and she was in actual fact an important prison reformist, many of the children knew that Darwin was on the back of the £10 note and why he was so important and some had a good guess as to who Adam Smith was, as well as Houblon from the now discontinued £50 note.
We discussed the Great War, the economy, quantitative easing and all sorts of things sparked from this £2 coin, and even some of the teachers learned something, and all in 15 minutes. A bite sized chunk of something that sparked an interest not only in me, but in the children and a valuable 15 minutes of time that may not have them remembering the actual names of the people for all eternity, but a link to a memory that might remind them to look on the back of the notes and remember that assembly.
