Celebrating the Coronation 2023
11 resources and ideas for celebrating King Charles III's coronation in your school
Last year, we celebrated Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. This year, we have another royal celebration: this time the coronation of King Charles III (it’s also Year 6 SATs week too but let’s not mention that). Yes, union flags will be waved, street parties held and pupils will come to school wearing every imaginable shade of red, white and blue. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to be involved in a historical event that is happening in our lifetimes and should go beyond colouring in union flags and pictures of the king. In order to build a memorable anniversary in your school, here are some ideas and resources to help you commemorate this historic ocassion.
Historical Reenactment:
Westminster Abbey have produced a resource that involves pupils reenacting Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation from 1953. This one requires a bit of organisation but looks like it’s worth doing and will help pupils understand what happens during the coronation ceremony. Pupils (or even adults) can act in role to recreate the coronation; there is a plan for teachers with a list of all the props you will need, a powerpoint and script cards for the different characters to read which cover everything. This would be great for a memorable ‘wow’ assembly to discuss the coronation during the Bank Holiday weekend. You might even take inspiration from the primary school that staged a reenactment using their local church as ‘Westminster Abbey’ during last year’s jubilee celebrations (see below for details).
The Westminster Abbey resources contain some good information about what a coronation is and history of coronations that could be used for an assembly or background information to use in class if you don’t want to go as far as reenacting.
https://www.westminster-abbey.org/teaching-resources/coronation-ceremony
Meet the Monarch:
This workshop is being run at Windsor Castle by the Royal Collection Trust. If you are lucky enough and near enough to attend it looks like it will be useful for classes studying the monarchy at Key Stage 2. However, there are some resources that could be utilised in class including a downloadable pack on the roles of the King, which could be used to find out more about what the King’s role means in the modern world. This could be a good way of contrasting the role of monarchs from the past and how the position of the king/queen has evolved.
https://www.rct.uk/schools/sessions/meet-the-monarch-09-2022#/
Coronation Benches
This competition is well worth doing with some fantastic prizes. Pupils work collaboratively to create a design for a coronation bench that will be installed in the Tower of London during the coronation period. The winning schools will be visited by an artist who will work with the winning group of children to create their bench. One school also will will a fully funded class visit to London to visit the Tower of London and see their work on display. The winning benches will then be delivered to the schools. This project must be a group project but could be done as a whole school project. There is quite a short deadline as the closing date is midnight 10th March so if you want to take part it’s probably best to get started in the next couple of weeks. See the link to register and for more information.
https://www.hrp.org.uk/schools/the-tower-of-london-schools-coronation-competition/#gs.nqrtnp
HRP also have some fab resources here to use in class or for a whole school assembly.
The Royal Family
https://www.royal.uk/coronation
The above website has a plethora of information about the royal family and the coronation. It’s well worth a look as there are links to other websites and some interesting background information and articles on different aspects of the coronation.
An opportunity for chronology
One class activity that would be great for helping pupils understand chronology would be to create a timeline of the life of our current royal family. This would be great for getting younger pupils to understand sequencing and scaling and would also work for older pupils looking at concepts such as centuries, decades and time durations (you could get pupils to work out the duration of the reigns of different monarchs from House of Windsor). If you are studying a non-chronological unit on the UK monarchy this would be a great activity to include to see where the House of Windsor fits in with other monarchs and royal dynasties.
Pupils could create large timeline using border paper or even by drawing their timelines on tables by using chalk pens and then placing events or reigns using a scale. Remember to follow up your timeline work by discussing how periods and events fit in with other history studied.
Use a picture book
I’m a great advocate of using picture books to explain aspects of history and not just with the youngest pupils. Picture books can be incredibly powerful at all ages. The above book from the ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ series is yet to be released but (based on the rest of this series) I’m sure it will form a great starting point for talking about King Charles III and his life.
‘The Boy Who Would Be King’ (released 13th April) looks like it will be another amazing book by the legendary team of Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman. If their collaboration on ‘Poppy Field’ is anything to go by this will be well worth investing in (I already have mine on pre-order) and could be used across English and History work.
We Three Kings
One approach you could take might be to look at the three different King Charles and compare them. This would be a great opportunity to look at source material in the form of the portraiture of the three kings. You could give pupils a brief overview of the two Stuart kings’ reigns to give some context. Some pupils might be familiar with Charles II if they have previously learnt about the Great Fire of London.
Pupils might look at how each monarch is portrayed and the symbols of monarchy shown in the portraits; the crown, orb and sceptre and what they represent. It would also be interesting to compare this to the current King’s portrait and how the role of the monarchy has evolved. Why is CI shown on horseback in armour (and why on earth is his horse indoors)? Why is CII shown seated dressed in full kingly regalia holding the orb? How does the modern King Charles want to be viewed in comparison? What sort of monarch does he wish to be seen as?
The National Portrait Gallery has a wealth of material that you could use for this.
Discussing these two previous kings would also be useful to highlight how the role of the monarch (and their relationship with parliament) has changed.
The Coronation Emblem
Above is the official emblem for King Charles III’s coronation. This could be used as a great starting point for learning. Pupils could look at the emblem and discuss symbolism: what images can they see and why have they been used? You could discuss the national flowers of the different nations of the UK and how they are used elsewhere (for example, on coinage or at sporting events).
It might also be interesting to look at other royal emblems and discuss their symbolism. A good place to start is the royal standard and coat of arms: what do these symbols represent and why has the current royal family chosen them? You might also research some of the symbols or royal standards or coats of arms of past monarchs and compare them with the current standard.
If you wanted to get creative, pupils could design their own coronation emblem for King Charles based on their research. You might even run this as a whole school competition with prizes for different year groups or phases.
The Crown Jewels
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/#gs.qey00a
https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/Trails/the-crown-jewels
The Crown Jewels have their own intriguing history. Did you know that most of the Crown Jewels date from 1661 when they had to be remade for Charles II’s coronation (they had been broken up or sold during the Interregnum period)? They are visible symbols of power and it would be interesting to delve deeper and find out more about their use and their history. The above sites have some good information on the history of the Crown Jewels which are useful if you want to explore this aspect of the cornation.
Hold a debate
The coronation is not without its critics. As part of your work on this event, you might take a different slant on things and discuss some of the more contentious issues surrounding it.
The coronation has been scaled down but should we be holding a coronation during the current financial crisis? The event is still going to cost tens of millions in taxpayers’ money at a time when sectors such as the NHS and schools are struggling for funding and families across the country are using food banks and seeing their energy bills skyrocket. In other countries across Europe, no monarchy actually requires a coronation. Why then is there a need to continue this centuries old ceremony in the UK? Is it a great opportunity to show off our history and traditions to the rest of the world that will boost tourism or is it an outdated ancient ritual? Pupils could research their debate using sources and then hold a class debate giving different views. This would definitely be an opportunity for older pupils to apply their speaking and listening, as well as their written, skills across English and History lessons.
Another issue you could also look at is why the Koh-i-Noor diamond is not being used as part of the Crown Jewels and discuss whether it should be returned. Pupils could look at the British Empire and the role it played in acquiring the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
The Big Help Out
My last idea is the Big Help Out which encourages people of all ages to get involved in helping their community and charities. There isn’t a lot of information on the website at the moment, but this could be something that whole schools could get involved in for the coronation week as opposed to the usual street parties/picnics/dress up days. Why not use it as an opportunity to improve local community or raise funds for a charity?