Magna Carta is called the most important document in history. So important that people still call upon it 800 years later. But where did it come from and why did people die for it? Jump into the 13th century and decide for yourself why Magna Carta keeps coming back… Collect Badges for each stage of learning in this interactive resource

An online themed collection on the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 . Teachers and students can access to original documents of the period with teacher’s notes, transcripts, timeline and family tree. Audio recordings of most documents open them up to a new audience, and an accompanying Pinterest board brings the collection to life. There are printed Jacobite pamphlets and to a song calling for George I to go home and many other sources.

An online themed collection on the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 . Teachers and students can access to original documents of the period with teacher’s notes, transcripts, timeline and family tree. Audio recordings of most documents open them up to a new audience, and an accompanying Pinterest board brings the collection to life. There are printed Jacobite pamphlets and to a song calling for George I to go home and many other sources.

Victorians for Sale! Has advertising changed from Victorian times? This collection of Victorian advertisements is aimed at any teacher or student engaged in a local study of the Victorian period. The sources could be used to help provide a sense of period and show pupils the type of source material they might find in their local archive, museum or record office. The collection could be used alongside the Victorian lives collection on this website to give further insight into the Victorian home life.

This collection of documents relating to the lives of the Victorians is aimed at any teacher or student engaged in a local study of the Victorian period. The sources could be used to help provide a sense of period and show pupils the type of sources they may encounter when looking at material in their local archive, museum or record office. The collection includes pictures, drawings, maps, photographs, advertisements, reports, census pages, letters etc.

This session introduces pupils to the ‘archive keep-safe box’, as they discover the different documents and objects inside and what these reveal about a person from the past. Pupils will have the opportunity to re-create a Victorian photograph by trying on replica costume, as they find out more about the lives of rich and poor children at this time. We will take pictures of the pupils in their costume and insert their image into an original Victorian photograph. You can book this session by going to the National Archives Education website (linked to our shop).

The aim of this lesson is to get students to engage with original documents relating to prison hulks. Students will look at various records relating to the 15-year old James Butler and more generally in relation to the physical conditions on board. By interpreting these documents you can discover how criminal justice system actually worked in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They will also form an appreciation of the conditions on board prison hulks.

The purpose of this document collection is to allow students and teachers to develop their own questions and lines of historical enquiry. A possible enquiry question would be: 'What was Britain's response to the child refugee problem in Nazi occupied countries?' Again, these sources could be used to support school programmes which use survivor testimony. Alternatively, teachers may wish to use the collection to develop their own resources or to &'curate&'; their own 'exhibition&'.

The purpose of this document collection is to allow students and teachers to develop their own questions and lines of historical enquiry on Attlee’s Britain, 1945-1951. The documents themselves are arranged according to theme, so that sources are grouped together rather than following a strict chronological order. Some of the themes include: the economy; rationing; housing, the welfare state, the National Health Service, and the nationalisation of coal, railways and electricity.

There are 6 galleries in this Exhibition, each containing a number of case studies. Each Case Study is designed so that it can be used as a ‘stand alone’ item in one or two classroom sessions. However, each Case Study in a Gallery is linked to form a more coherent area of research. This has been done to give students and teachers the maximum amount of flexibility. The Case Studies in each Gallery are linked together to allow students to answer the ‘Big Question’. Details of the Big Question can be found on the Introduction to the Gallery Page and on each source page. This resource has been archived as the interactive parts no longer work. You can still use the rest of it for information, tasks or research. Please note that it has not been updated since its creation in 2009. You can find other archived resources similar to this one in our ‘Topic Sites’ section on our Education website.

The purpose of this document collection is to allow students and teachers to develop their own questions and lines of historical enquiry on the political and social aspects of 1950s Britain. The documents themselves are arranged according to theme, so that sources are grouped together rather than a chronological order. Some of the themes include: the economy; rationing; housing, the National Health Service, race relations, cultural life, the Suez crisis, and nuclear protest.

Follow the progress of the struggle through the archives. The collection of documents relates to protests, racial tension and the state and federal governments response to calls for equal rights for black Americans in the 1950’s and 1960s. The earliest documents relate to high school segregation in the United States, the documents from the Kennedy era of the early 1960s and finally, the documents which cover the outbreak and aftermath of the Los Angeles riots of 1965.

The purpose of this document collection relating to the creation of India/Pakistan is to allow students and teachers to develop their own lines of historical enquiry or historical questions using original documents on this period. The sources offer students a chance to develop their powers of evaluation and analysis. Teachers may wish to use the resources to encourage students to ‘curate’ their own exhibition

What was Chamberlain trying to do? Chamberlain flew to meet Hitler in September 1938 to resolve the crisis. Three of the documents here are extracts from Chamberlain’s own record of the meeting. The other two documents are useful evidence of the kind of advice Chamberlain was getting at home in Britain.

The purpose of this lesson is for pupils to look at some pages from the census and learn how much they can discover about people who lived in the past.

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

This lesson and pictures focus on what the British found when they entered Belsen concentration camp.This study of Belsen reveals how British soldiers were aghast at what they found when they liberated the camps.

This lesson provides pupils with the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting documents to be released for years. The supporting sources, detail two of the proposed assassination plans that formed part of Operation Foxley.

The lesson considers how changing technology and warfare, showing how new inventions completely change the way war is waged.

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.