“Here’s to strong women.
May we know them.
May we be them.
May we raise them!”
Unknown
We all have women in our life that we look up to, idolise or aspire to be like. These women might be mothers, grandmothers, sisters, celebrities, or even complete strangers. Nevertheless, the qualities we admire in them help drive us to be the best we can.
What Is International Women’s Day?
International Women’s Day is a day to honour, celebrate and recognise the achievements of inspirational women around the world. It is celebrated on the 8th March each year and it also highlights the ongoing journey towards eradicating inequalities.
History of International Women’s Day
The movement began on 19th March 1911, where over one million people participated in demonstrations with women demanding the right to vote and protesting against discrimination. By 1914, demonstrations had started to be celebrated on the 8th March and this date has stuck ever since. In 1975, the United Nations adopted International Women’s Day which is now recognised as a rallying call for support in women’s participation in society, politics and economics.
Today recent protests such as the #MeToo movement continue to help push for progress in intersectional women’s rights.
Why Is It Important for Our Young People to Recognise IWD?
In all honesty, we should be celebrating the achievements of women every day. However, International Women’s Day provides achance to truly shine the spotlight on some of our most inspiring sisters. It’s a great opportunity for our children to acknowledge women around them as well as their achievements. Many schools across the world mark this day with special events, activities or workshops. But why is a teacher’s place to champion gender equality and commemorate the successes of memorable women?
Well, for young girls there are few things more important than having a strong female role model to look up to and when we as teachers bring stories of inspiring women into the classroom, we help our young people see the opportunities that they can pursue throughout their lives. Celebrating the achievements of all women helps break down the gender based stereotypes that still exist, and that benefits everyone (not just the girls). Its important to make sure the women you’re discussing come from a variety of different backgrounds, work in a range of different fields and truly represent a diverse range of ethnicities, abilities, beliefs and identities so that our girls can look up to somebody like them.
How Can Twinkl Help You Mark International Women’s Day?
Here at Twinkl, we want to help teachers feel confident in delivering lessons and facilitating discussions. We have created a wealth of resources that can help you mark International Women’s Day, helping you to deliver important messages on gender equality and respect.
Introduce Early Level learners to the idea of rights and responsibilities using this great child-friendly PowerPoint all about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – this can act as the starting point for you to discuss why everyone has rights regardless of who they are which can lead on to talking about women’s rights too. You could also use this brilliant Women in STEM Differentiated Reading Comprehension to help look at women working in areas that are traditionally dominated by men.
This First Level Resource Pack has a broad range of resources within in that would be ideal for creating a short unit of work for your P2-P4 learners. This IDL Topic Web links in to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development and can be used to exploIDL Topic Web linksre gender equality.
For Second Level learners we have resources covering a number of significant Scottish women including Jane Haining and Mary Slessor. You might also want to look outside of Scotland to some of the women who helped to build NASA such as Dorothy Vaughan or Katherine Johnson. This resource pack is full of resources that look at ‘Global Goal 5: Gender Equality’ and would be perfect for planning a larger unit of work.
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