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The National Archives Education Service

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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.

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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.
Jacobite Rising of 1745
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Jacobite Rising of 1745

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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.
Selling the Victorians
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Selling the Victorians

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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.
Victorian Lives: life different in these times
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Victorian Lives: life different in these times

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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.
19th Century prison ships
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19th Century prison ships

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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.
Kindertransport: Saving Refugee Children?
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Kindertransport: Saving Refugee Children?

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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&'.
Attlee's Britain
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Attlee's Britain

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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.
Fifties Britain -Too Good to be True
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Fifties Britain -Too Good to be True

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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.
Civil Rights in America
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Civil Rights in America

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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 Road to Partition 1939-1947
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The Road to Partition 1939-1947

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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
Chamberlain and Hitler
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Chamberlain and Hitler

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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.
Census Detective
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Census Detective

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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.
Wartime Propaganda
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Wartime Propaganda

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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
Belsen Concentration Camp 1945
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Belsen Concentration Camp 1945

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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.
Hitler Assassination Plan
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Hitler Assassination Plan

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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.
Government Posters
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Government Posters

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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.
Evacuation to Canada in WWII
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Evacuation to Canada in WWII

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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.
The Home Front
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The Home Front

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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.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler

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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.
Great War soldier’s record
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Great War soldier’s record

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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’.