Subjects like slavery are sometimes avoided by teachers to steer away from controversy in the classroom. Marcia Hutchinson, Director of Primary Colours, Publisher of teaching pack

On April 25 a new teaching pack featuring African abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano, will be launched on April 25 at the House of Lords. It will be used as a resource to help teachers of history, literacy and citizenship teach pupils about Britain’s involvement in chattel enslavement.

It is the first time that slavery has been tackled at key stage 2 and the subject is expected to become part of the National Curriculum next year. The story of Ottobah Cuogana is an inspirational one.

He was born around 1757 in the Gold Coast from the Fante peoples, he was kidnapped and enslaved as a young child and ended up working on the sugar plantations in Grenada in 1770. Later on, he was bought by an English merchant and taken to England where he later gained his freedom.

Like his close friend Olaudah Equiano, he published a personal account of his experiences as an enslaved person. He wrote: “Being in this dreadful captivity and horrible slavery, without any hope of deliverance… beholding the most dreadful scenes of misery and cruelty, and seeing my miserable companions often cruelly lashed, and, as it were, cut to pieces, for the most trifling faults… ade me often tremble and weep.”

But Cugoano campaigned for the abolition of slavery in his 1787 personal testimonial, calling for: “a total abolition of slavery.” Marcia Hutchinson, director of Primary Colours, the company that produced the teaching pack said:

“Subjects like slavery are sometimes avoided by teachers to steer away from controversy in the classroom…This is a big part of British history which funded the Industrial Revolution and which determined how we live today. We need to understand how much society has benefited from slavery.”

Hutchinson set up Primary Colours so that young people can become more aware of the experiences of black people and so that her own children would have access to more inclusive books in their education. It is supported by the Arts Council England in Yorkshire.