VIPs of the Past - Edward Jenner

 On Monday, Tigers learnt about the doctor and scientist, Edward Jenner. We learnt about how he discovered that cow pox could be used to protect against small pox. They understood that this was the discovery of vaccinations. 

We used Participation Theatre to retell the story. In participation theatre, our audience responded to different characters and words with actions. 

Our retelling went like this:

A long time ago there was a disease called small pox. There was no cure and people died.

This is Edward Jenner. Edward Jenner is a doctor. He wants to cure small pox.

This is Sarah. She is a milkmaid. Do we know what a milkmaid does? (Wait for the children

to respond). That’s right. Come on Daisy, we need a cow to milk.

One day Sarah was milking Daisy. When she looked at her hands, Sarah found she had lots of

spots on them. The spots were called cow pox.

The spots itched a lot. Sarah went to see her doctor, Edward Jenner. She asked if he would

put cream on her cow pox. Edward studied the spots. They reminded him of that other much

nastier disease, small pox.

Sarah went back to milking Daisy the cow. Edward realised that milkmaids never caught

small pox – the terrible disease that was killing lots of people. He wondered if the spots

that Sarah got - called cow pox - was the answer.

Edward had an idea. He asked a boy, James Phipps to help him.

Edward waited for Sarah to get cow pox again. He took some of the nasty pus from Sarah’s

cow pox and gave it to James. James now had cow pox too.

When James was better, Edward gave him small pox. James must have been very scared.

People died of small pox.

James was ill for several days.... But then he started to get better again! It was a miracle! He

survived. Edward’s experiment had worked. He realised that Sarah’s cow pox was very

similar to small pox. By giving James the cow pox first, he had been vaccinated. Do we

know what that word means?

Let’s asks the scientists if they know what vaccinated means, shall we?

Edward told the scientists what he had done. He believed he had a cure for small pox. The

scientists didn’t believe him at first. They made fun of his ideas. But Edward proved his idea

worked and soon, thanks to his amazing discovery and a cow called Daisy, small pox was

cured.