2015 Flags

TOOLKIT

In 2015, Parliament will be celebrating two historic anniversaries that signify the beginnings of a journey to rights and representation in the UK, namely the 800th year of the sealing of Magna Carta and the 750th anniversary of the Simon de Montfort Parliament.

To mark the anniversary of the Montfort Parliament of 1265, where elected representatives of the shires and the boroughs came together for the first time, the 2015 Flag Project has invited 650 schools, one from every constituency, to design a flag to represent where they live.

All submitted designs from participating schools will be displayed online in a 2015 Anniversaries digital exhibition space. This is an exciting opportunity to showcase your school’s flag and share your design and success with all your friends and neighbouring schools as well as with other participants.

A selection of flags will be chosen to represent the nations and regions across the UK and will be made up into sewn flags to fly at a special event in March 2015.

All participating schools will receive a special display certificate.

To be considered for selection for the event, finished designs must be returned to us as soon as possible, and no later than 1st December 2014.

To download all or parts of this pack, view a video workshop and to upload your flag (from September 2014) visit www.parliament.uk/flagtools

CONTENTS2015 FLAG PROJECT 4

WHY THE MONTFORT PARLIAMENT? 5

DESIGNING AND CREATING 6

LESSON PLAN: PRE-PLANNING 6

LESSON PLAN: IN ACTION 7

EXAMPLE FLAGS 8

VISUAL DEMONSTRATION 9

FLAG DESIGN RULES 10

Proportions 10

Colours 10

Light and dark colours 10

EMBLEMS 11

TIME TO GET STARTED 12

TOP TIPS 13

THE FINAL FLAG DESIGN 14

CHOOSING A FINAL FLAG DESIGN TO SEND TO PARLIAMENT 14

SUBMITTING YOUR FLAG 14

THE 2015 FLAG PROJECT TOOLKITThis toolkit contains all of the information you need to help your students create their flag. It will show you how to enable students to quickly and easily produce a new flag design and then make a model of it out of cut and joined sections of coloured paper.

Your school or locality may already have its own official flag, but for this project you are requested to produce a brand new flag design. The design should represent your local community.

The sessions that you run are likely to produce a lot of designs. This toolkit contains suggestions on how to select the final new design that will represent your community and how you can turn it into a digital file to be sent to Parliament. Please follow the guidelines closely. This will ensure that all of the flag designs produced for the project will be standardised and produced in a way that will make them easy to identify on the project website. It also means that selected designs that will be sewn into cloth flags will look spectacular when displayed as a group during the celebrations.

We hope you have lots of fun designing your flag and we look forward to seeing the results.

If you have any questions on the process and delivery of your flag and on the 2015 Anniversaries themselves, please do not hesitate to get in touch with

us by emailing 2015flags@parliament.uk.

Why the Montfort Parliament?Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, was a French nobleman who came to England in the 1230s and received lands from King Henry III. Simon married the king’s sister and became one of King Henry’s main advisers. He was a skilled politician and military leader who was given great responsibility by Henry III.

During Henry III’s reign, Parliament became increasingly important. Parliament was the name given to the occasions when the barons, bishops and abbots met with the king, usually at Westminster, but also elsewhere. Gradually these meetings came to include representatives of the shires and towns.

In 1258, the barons of England, fed up with the way King Henry III had been governing England, forced him to agree to a set of reforms called the Provisions of Oxford. These reforms effectively removed the king from power and set up a council of fifteen barons who had the power to appoint ministers, and who were responsible to the ‘community of the realm’ through regular parliaments three times a year.

In 1261 the king regained power and had the Provisions of Oxford cancelled. Most of the barons accepted this, but Simon de Montfort did not. In 1264 he captured the king and took over the country himself. He re-introduced the Provisions of Oxford and held parliaments, in which not only the barons, but also representatives of shires and towns participated in discussing matters of national concern. Although Simon de Montfort was killed in 1265, the summoning of representatives to parliaments eventually became established, thereby paving the way for the emergence of the House of Commons.

Parliaments in Scotland and Ireland developed at a similar time. The first surviving evidence for a parliamentary assembly in Scotland is found in an act dating from 1235, it refers to an assembly held at Kirkliston. Although similar to the English Parliament, in that it developed from meetings of the ‘King’s great council’, and came to include knights and representatives of the towns, the Scottish Parliament did not evolve into 2 separate chambers. An assembly summoned to meet at Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1295 included lords and also knights from the counties. Burgesses from the towns began attending in 1311.

There is some evidence of parliaments being summoned in Wales, and of Welsh representatives attending early English parliaments. Following an Act of 1536 representatives of Welsh counties and towns attended meetings of the English Parliament. Following the Acts of Union passed by the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707 the Parliament of Great Britain at Westminster was formed. In 1801 the Irish Act of Union united the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland. Under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 ‘Southern Ireland’ gained dominion status whilst the six Ulster counties remained part of the United Kingdom.

Representatives drawn from constituencies across the United Kingdom continue to make up the House of Commons.

More information of the evolution of Parliaments can be found on: http://www.parliament.uk/education/teaching-resources-lesson-plans/history-of-parliament-timeline/ and http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/EducationandCommunityPartnershipsresources/TimelineEnglishSept_2013.pdf

DESIGNING AND CREATINGLESSON PLAN: PRE-PLANNING

We have developed a step by step lesson plan to help you run your flag making session.

Before you start your session will need:

• Plenty of pencils, colouring pens and A4 white paper

• A range of coloured A2, A3 & A4 papers that correspond to the 14 project colours (please see page 10 for further information)

• Scissors

• PVA

• Guillotine

• Optional: access to IT to research emblems or similar

• Optional: photocopies of the heraldic blazon division scheme. Please visit www.parliament.uk/flagtools

Before you begin you may want to pre-plan your groups so that you can create groups with the best dynamics and diversity of abilities before you start each session. Groups of 4-5 students works well.

However, if you feel you have little time to prepare for the session, you can view a six minute video workshop to talk you through everything you’ll need to know from your session. The video is hosted by Jonathan Parsons, a specialist in flag making who has been making and using flags in his artwork for many years. He has also developed the following lesson plan. Find the video by visiting www.parliament.uk/flagtools

This link is only being shared with participants of this project, so please do type the full link into your web browser to access the video.

LESSON PLAN: IN ACTION

The lesson has four steps. You might want to use this lesson plan verbatim but please do adapt to your own needs and style and to those of your students.

INTRODUCTION• Our class has been selected to take part in a special 2015 project. Along with schools chosen from

across the UK, we will be making a flag to commemorate 750 years since a special Parliament was held. Simon de Montfort’s Parliament in 1265 was the first time representatives from towns were called together to Parliament. Even today one Member of Parliament represents 650 different areas across the country. The flag we make today will represent our area too. (At this point please use the background information in this pack, or the Stories from Parliament video to expand as far as is suitable for the age and knowledge of your group – you may want to introduce the name of your constituency and/or MP)

• In this lesson you are going to be designing and making your own flag. You will be working in groups of around 4-5 students

• People have been using flags for more than five thousand years

• A flag is a signal that can be easily seen and understood when you see it from a long way away

• A flag is like a very simple picture – it’s basically a rectangle that has been divided up and coloured in

• Flags are symbolic – this means that they are pictures that mean something, but don’t always look like something you can recognise

• Their colours mean something too

• Flags are often symbols of groups of people. This is why every country in the world has its own national flag. Today, I want you to try to design a flag that represents your own local community or area

• Once you’ve got the design, you will be making the flag out of cut out and stuck together coloured paper – I will show you how

• I’m quickly going to show you some flags from countries around the world so you can see what I’m talking about. Most flag designs are very simple. A simple design is much easier to cut out and put together than a complicated one, but it can still be a really strong symbol. The simplest way to design a flag is to divide up the rectangle into differently coloured areas.

EXAMPLE FLAGS

For this section, please cut out the 4 flag designs and text provided at the back of this book. It is fun to ask your students if they recognise each of the flags before you read out its description.

VISUAL DEMONSTRATION

• [France] This is the flag of France. It’s called a tricolour, which means that it’s made from three colours. The design is very simple – just a rectangle divided into three equal vertical bands. It is not a picture you can recognise, but it’s a very powerful symbol. This flag was designed about 300 years ago and is a symbol of a big change in the way the country was run. A lot of other countries have changed since then, and they have also wanted flags that symbolise the change, so they have used a tricolour too – a flag of three bands of colour. Because of this, the French flag has influenced the design of more new national flags than any other.

• [Ukraine] This is the flag of Ukraine. Again, it is a very simple design – this time, the rectangle has been divided into two equal horizontal bands. You might not think it looks like a picture of anything, but it uses traditional Ukrainian colours to symbolise huge fields of golden wheat under a blue sky.

• [United Kingdom] This flag is an even more complicated way of dividing up the rectangle into sections of colour, but you can still see it very easily from a long way away because the red and blue areas are kept apart by thin white bands. This is the flag of the United Kingdom. It mixes together three different flags (the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick) to show the union of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Some countries have decided to use an emblem on their flag to symbolise their country. An emblem is a picture of something you can recognise that has a special meaning to the people who use it and it can also be used by itself. I think the best emblems are very simple.

• [Turkey] The flag of Turkey combines two emblems: a crescent moon and a star, which are both traditional Islamic symbols. It is a very distinctive flag even though it’s very simple and only has two colours.

FLAG DESIGN RULES

ProportionsFlags have a specific size and shape. For this project you can either use a rectangle of ratio 1:2 or 2:3

1:2 rectangle 2:3 rectangle

For ease, it is probably useful for you to start your designs on A3 paper to allow you to get the proportions right without too much fuss.

ColoursFor this project, you have 14 colours to choose from. The colours are: Black, White, Vermillion (bright red), Burgundy (dark red), Citron (yellow), Greystone (dark grey), Slate Blue (dark blue), Ultramarine (bright blue), Pacific Blue (light blue), Emerald (bright green), Amazon (dark green), Orange, Earth Brown and Purple.

Light and dark coloursIn heraldry and traditional flag making, different hues are known as enamels and these are divided into the metals and the colours.

Metals are: Citron and White (you can also use Pacific Blue) Colours are: Red, Blue, Black, Green, Purple, Orange and Brown.

The golden rule for flag design is that no colour should abut another colour and no metal should abut another metal; colours are always separated by metals. In other words, the light colours always separate the dark colours and vice versa.

Pacific BluePacific Blue

Emerald

Emerald

Vermillion

Vermillion

Ultram

arineU

ltramarine

Orange

Orange

Earth Brown

Earth Brown

PurplePurple

Citron

Citron

Slate BlueSlate Blue

Greystone

Greystone

Am

azonA

mazon

BurgundyBurgundyBlack

White

EMBLEMS

There are all kinds of exciting shapes and images that can be used as emblems on a flag. The most commonly used ones are stars, discs, crescents, plants and animals.

The simplest way to make an emblem is to make bold line drawings onto a separate piece of paper and then cut out and stick the emblem to the background flag. You will have to make one emblem for each face of the flag and these will have to be mirror images of one another.

Remember that a real flag has to be very thin and light in order to fly in a gentle breeze, so don’t be tempted to make an emblem with a line drawing that is too complicated.

TIME TO GET STARTEDHow can you get an idea for your flag design? First, try to think about what the people in your community are like – what makes where you live different, or special? What colours and shapes could best show what you’ve thought of? All of you will have different ideas, so you’ll have to discuss it first.

So, the main things to think about are:

• Try to keep darker colours separate: white, yellow and light blue can be used in between darker colours, so your design can be seen clearly from a long way away

• Your design can just be a rectangle simply divided up, but with imaginative colours

• If you want to include an emblem it can be anything, but you must keep it simple – remember you’ll have to cut out two that are exactly the same

In your groups I want you to:

1. Work together to come up with ideas for the design –try to think what each of you is best at – do some sketching of your ideas; you don’t need to colour it all in

2. Make a final neat drawing

3. Come to me for the materials that you need and make the flag through cutting and joining the coloured paper

The design process should take up the first half of the session and making the paper flag should take up the second half.

TOP TIPS

If in the initial creative process your students have drawn very complicated or literal images, for example a sports team playing, support and encourage them to simplify their idea. You can suggest they use a green background to represent the playing field and a simple emblem in one of the lighter colours to represent the team or sport, such as a hand-print.

It is also likely that some of the groups will produce designs that are closely inspired by existing flag designs. This is acceptable and should be allowed, as it is a common way in which many national flag designs have been developed.

You may want to connect up this project to other subjects you teach or that your student group are involved with. Here are some possibilities:

• Art & design – proportions, colours and symbolism; textiles and needlework

• Mathematics – fractions, geometry and symmetry; horizontal, vertical and diagonal

• Identity/citizenship – community and representation geography – countries of the world and how they change

• History – ancient empires; heraldry; the concept of ‘nationhood’ and sovereign nations

THE FINAL FLAG DESIGNCHOOSING A FINAL FLAG DESIGN TO SEND TO PARLIAMENT

For the 2015 Flag Project, Parliament is looking for just one designed flag from each school which will represent your area. You can choose which flag to submit however you like.

A quick and democratic method is to ask students to vote for their favourite flag. This could be in the class or the whole school (although if just within the class, teams wouldn’t be able to vote for themselves!). This activity in itself is a great way to introduce voting, democracy, elections and Parliament. You may want to remind them what makes a great flag – does it represent where they live? Is it interesting to look at? Is it symmetrical?

Alongside the project for Parliament, we hope that you will also display all the flags produced in your lesson. One method that works well is to punch holes in the corners of the model flags and hang them using opened paper clips in displays throughout the classroom or school.

SUBMITTING YOUR FLAG

The winning flag design should be shared with Parliament as a digital file. The image must be:

• Of the obverse (front face) side of the paper model flag

• Submitted the correct way up (i.e. with the top uppermost on the screen when viewed on a computer)

• Cropped to the edges of the flag

The ideal way is to scan in your flag. To do this, scan the obverse side on a flat-bed digital scanner at the highest resolution possible (at least 150 dots per inch).

If you cannot scan the image for any reason it can be captured as a digital photograph, ideally through the use of a Smartboard or Whiteboard document camera.

If you can’t capture an image using the above options you can use a standard digital camera. If you do this, please make sure the flag is evenly lit and taken completely squared and face-on to the camera by using a tripod.

A simple-to-use online space will be available in September 2014 for all nominated schools to quickly and easily submit their flag and supporting information. Details will be sent to all participating schools and shared online.

You can find out more at www.parliament.uk/flagtools or email us on 2015flags@parliament.uk

[France] This is the flag of France. It’s called a tricolour, which means that it’s made from three colours. The design is very simple – just a rectangle divided into three equal vertical bands. It is not a picture you can recognise, but it’s a very powerful symbol. This flag was designed about 300 years ago and is a symbol of a big change in the way the country was run. A lot of other countries have changed since then, and they have also wanted flags that symbolise the change, so they have used a tricolour too – a flag of three bands of colour. Because of this, the French flag has influenced the design of more new national flags than any other.

[Ukraine] This is the flag of Ukraine. Again, it is a very simple design – this time, the rectangle has been divided into two equal horizontal bands. You might not think it looks like a picture of anything, but it uses traditional Ukrainian colours to symbolise huge fields of golden wheat under a blue sky.

[Turkey] The flag of Turkey combines two emblems: a crescent moon and a star, which are both traditional Islamic symbols. It is a very distinctive flag even though it’s very simple and only has two colours.

[United Kingdom] This flag is an even more complicated way of dividing up the rectangle into sections of colour, but you can still see it very easily from a long way away because the red and blue areas are kept apart by thin white bands. This is the flag of the United Kingdom. It mixes together three different flags (the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick) to show the union of England, Scotland and Ireland.

We wish you and your students the best of luck in designing your flag. If you have any questions along the way do not hesitate to get in touch. And please remember to get

your designs to us as soon as possible, and at the latest by 1st December 2014.

www.parliament.uk/flagtools