Florence Nightingale

Born 1820 Died 1910

The real life superhero from the past that we are learning about this week is Florence Nightingale. Before Florence Nightingale hospitals were very overcrowded. They were not clean and many had rats. The food was terrible and there were not enough Doctors to look after the patients.

Florence Nightingale trained as a nurse and during the Crimean War ( 1854) Florence decided she wanted to help look after and make hospitals a better place for wounded soldiers.Florence made the hospitals clean, she made the food better to eat. Florence also trained other nurses to show them how to look after patients properly.

Florence Nightingale cared for her patients so much she would go and visit them all through the night to make sure they were ok. She took a lamp with her so she could see, and she became known as the “Lady with the lamp”.Florence also helped soldiers write letters home to their families if they were too poorly. She decided that instead of getting married and staying at home she wanted to help people, and this was not something many women did at this time. She was awarded a medal (an order of the merit) for all her hard work.

Independent Task: Your mission today is to think of a hospital and what it would have looked like before Florence Nightingale started. You could draw or write down how it would have looked like. Then can you draw or write down what hospitals would have looked like after Florence Nightingale had been working in them.

Why was she a Superhero? What made her special?