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Regular readers will know I am a sucker for an ‘inspirational person’ book and my children, particularly Em, really enjoy learning about the achievements of people. I’ve learnt so much about so many amazing individuals since we have been working on small projects that when the team at Maverick books asked me if I’d like to be part of the Trailblazer blog tour, I knew it was a great fit for us.
There was so much going on in this book that I turned it into a lesson for the children on not only Lily, but the challenges that women have faced just to play football. I’ve shared here a quick overview of the book then a little about the lapbook as well (I’ve included everything you need as a free download further down).
Trailblazer – Lily Parr
The book, Trailblazer, from Maverick and written by Elizabeth Dale and illustrated by Carolina Coroa is a fantastic book about Lily Parr. Lily Parr was a true trailblazer for women’s football, and her story is one that I wasn’t aware of until now. She was born in 1905 and was a true star of her time. The politics of womens’ football is insane to read now in 2020, but it was only 1971(!) that the ban on women playing on FA grounds was lifted. This is despite the women’s game being immensely popular back in 1920 (53,000 people inside a Boxing Day match with a further 14,000 outside!) but in 1921 the FA determined that it wasn’t quite proper for women to be playing football. A notion that seems crazy to my football mad children.
The book is fabulously written and the illustrations pop off the page, there are a lot of snippets and facts interspersed and I’ve caught the older two reading this a few times alone since it arrived.
I knew this was a great opportunity to use LIly’s story to create a lapbook about her and the women’s game.
Resources Required
To use this book as the basis of a quick lesson you will need the following resources:
- Trailblazer book
- Lapbook download here
- Timeline download here
- A3 card
- Glue
I used some additional printables from Twinkl but they are by no means necessary but I have included here for reference:
- Printables to decorate lapbook
- Top Trumps Cards
- Newsroom article (comprehension task)
- For younger children these football pencil control sheets (these kept H occupied)
The Lesson
We read the book together and talked about whether we thought it was fair that women were banned from playing football. We talked about Lily and compared her to some of the football stars we know from the men and women’s game and how she might have compared to them.
We then set about decorating the outside of the lapbook and filling in the inserts. I cut out the Top Trumps cards for the children and D was pleased to see Steph Houghton in there and Megan Rapinoe. Once we had completed the facts about Lily they wrote about whether they thought the FA were right to ban women from playing on their grounds and the reason for their answer.
We stuck together the three timeline pieces (you then fold it into a concertina) and filled it in, talking about other events that took place at the same time to give the children context about just how recent some of the events happened.
We then looked at the Twinkl Newsroom article about the statue of Lily Parr and then we had a game of Top Trumps. Much fun was had! D also used the Top Trumps cards to choose his dream team and had fun explaining to Emma about the formation of teams etc.
Other Things to Explore
There is so much to do with this topic and we will definitely pick this up again in the future. For now here are some other ideas that you could do to extend the learning:
- Create a comic strip of the Boxing Day game featuring Lily and her teammates
- Write a news story to report on the 1921 ban on women playing on FA grounds
- Link to the suffragette movement for older children which was in place at the time of the 1921 ban
- Design a banner to support women footballers (purple, green and white of the suffragette movement?)
- Design a World Cup Mascot
- Design a gallery of other women football heroes
- Study a modern female footballer and compare her path with that of Lily.
Hello Sarah,
My name is Gail Newsham, I am the primary source for all the research about the Dick, Kerr Ladies and of course Lily Parr. My book was first published in 1994. I wonder if out of courtesy, you have given any acknowledgement to any of my work that you will have used in writing your book?
Hi Gail,
I haven’t written a book. This is a review of a book by Elizabeth Dale. I created a resource to sit alongside it which provides a template for children to research using Elizabeth’s book or their own independent research. I haven’t recreated anything about Lily other than to ask some questions about her such as when she was born (to enable children to place here within the context of other things they’ve learnt), why she took a job at a factory and to ask them the names of the teams played for. There is also a timeline template about the Women’s game which helps children to pick out key dates in the development of the women’s game.
Perhaps, out of courtesy, you may wish to review the templates I have made available. You will see they do not reproduce any information from the book, they simply provide a framework for children to collate their learning on the subject.