The Education Service provides free online resources and taught sessions, supporting the National Curriculum for history from key stage 1 up to A-level. Visit our website to access the full range of our resources, from Domesday to Britain in the 1960s, and find out about more about our schools programme, including new professional development opportunities for teachers.
The Education Service provides free online resources and taught sessions, supporting the National Curriculum for history from key stage 1 up to A-level. Visit our website to access the full range of our resources, from Domesday to Britain in the 1960s, and find out about more about our schools programme, including new professional development opportunities for teachers.
This complete lesson plan with image based resources can be used to explore how the language of these government posters is used to persuade and inform.
This lesson asks pupils to develop their understanding of evacuation. Through primary source analysis it examines the fate of evacuees sent to Canada. Pupils investigate the organisation and bureaucracy behind evacuation, before looking at details of individual evacuees.
This lesson asks pupils to develop their understanding of the war on the Home Front. Through primary source analysis it examines how those involved on the Home Front were encouraged to deal with the war and the problems that shortages and uncertainty created.
This lesson is based on the story of the sinking of the Titanic. Using the sources pupils can find out about the passengers on the Titanic to find out about those who drowned and also the survivors.
This lesson encourages pupils to examine and investigate the British reaction to the outbreak of the French Revolution through the use of primary source evidence.
A lesson plan on Victorian homes. Pupils are gradually introduced to sources on Hackney, starting with a small map section, then photographic evidence, concluding with the census.
This lesson shows that attacks on civilians from the air began in the First World War and were quite serious. The focus of the tasks is on the drama and damage, the impact on civilians and British inability to deal with the raid.
This lesson offers graphic evidence of the cruelty on which enslavement was based and considers details about the way enslaved African society worked and how they were punished.
A lesson plan which enables pupils to learn about the plague and to learn how the lives, beliefs, ideas and attitudes of people in Britain have changed over time.
This lesson focuses on a Scottish First World War soldier, Donald Campbell. The main task requires pupils decide what constitutes a ‘good soldier’ and whether Donald Campbell was a ‘good soldier’.
This lesson asks pupils to investigate the early contact between Europeans and Native Americans. Using primary source diary extracts, pupils are able to understand and appreciate the first encounters between European settlers and the indigenous people of North America.
The lesson plan and sources helps pupils to look at conflicting evidence and assessing their reliability and to develop an understanding of the various ways Hitler is portrayed.
This resource provides a propaganda leaflet that is intended to be used as either part of a study of government propaganda over time or as part of a study of the British Empire. It may also be used as an English resource useful in the study of non-fiction texts that are designed to persuade
To mark the 100-year commemorations of the Representation of the People Act, the Education Service worked with professional film-maker, Nigel Kellaway, to engage young people (aged 16-19) with suffrage records held at The National Archives.
‘Suffrage Tales’ is the outcome of this project; a short stop-motion animation film, researched, created and filmed during Sunday 30 July – Friday 4 August 2017. As the power of the vote comes under scrutiny and provokes highly contentious debate, this film throws light upon the historical context of the franchise in a uniquely refreshing way. The young people involved drew upon a wide range of documents from our collection, to produce a film about their interpretations of the fight for women’s suffrage.
The film is now presented here as an educational resource, teaching tales of Suffrage with accompanying questions for use in the classroom.
This document collection on the reign of James I (and VI) allows students and teachers to develop their own questions and lines of historical enquiry on the nature of monarchical power, challenges to the Church of England and the relationship between king and parliament. A perfect digital sourcebook for students studying the Stuarts.
The collection contains thirty-nine documents and transcripts of original documents from the reign of James I, held within The National Archives of Great Britain.
This collection of photographs from The National Archives’ image library has been collated to provide a resource for English Language GCSE. The images can be used for descriptive or narrative creative writing prompts, allowing students to consider a variety of historical scenes as inspiration for their writing.
Whilst the resources have been designed with the English Language GCSE in mind, they can be used for other age groups to develop imagination when considering character and description.
Each image has been provided with its original document reference and description to offer some context to the image if desired, such as time period and location. However, the descriptions are deliberately brief and there are no correct answers required in creative writing. The photographs are presented as prompts only and students are not required to write creatively about actual historical places, figures or events.
The purpose of this document collection is to make available to teachers and students a wide selection of documents relating to the suffragette movement. The sources include material from the Home Office, Metropolitan Police and prison files, the Women’s Social and Political Union office (W.S.P.U.) which were used as exhibits in the trial of Emmeline Pankhurst and other leaders, including their correspondence and the Suffragette newspaper. We hope that such a collection will offer teachers the flexibility to develop their own approaches and questions and differentiate student tasks. All documents are provided with transcripts. Please note that in many cases we have displayed the whole document and highlighted the extract we have chosen to transcribe. These records support numerous lines of enquiry on a range of significant themes.
The link to the document collection can be found in the lesson PDF which also contains our Teachers Notes and an introduction from Dr Diane Atkinson.