Application questions

All applications must be made via our online application form. This webpage is a preview of all the questions in the online application form. You may wish to copy these questions into a Word document so that you can plan your answers before applying. There are only 4 assessed questions (for which we we have provided some guidance below) and the rest are either single-sentence or multiple-choice questions.

Part 1: eligibility questions

Question 1: Does your organisation employ at least one paid member of archive staff who will be involved in this project?
This is an eligibility question to check that your project can give students insight into archival careers. You will need to be able to answer yes to this question to progress your application.

Part 2: assessed questions

Question 2: How will you run your project? (300 words maximum)

Requirements:
All projects should contain two parts. In part 1, you’ll speak for 10 minutes at a school assembly during November 2025 (Discover Creative Careers Month). In part 2, you’ll invite at least 75 students in total (e.g. 3 classes of 25 students visiting on different days) to your archive for a engagement session between November and the first week of March (National Careers Week). Your engagement sessions will both show the relevance of your records to the students’ current studies and inspire students to pursue a career in archives in the future.

Prompts:
Who will be involved in your organisation and what will the timeline be?
What will be the length and group size of your sessions?
Which year group (within the 11 to 18 year old range) will you reach?
Are there any risks associated with the project and how will you mitigate these?

Assessment criterion: ‘Delivery and management’

Question 3: What will the impact of your project be? (maximum 400 words)

Prompts:
Which collections will you use and how will they link to the curriculum?
Which archive roles will you showcase and how will you inspire the students to consider a career in archives?
How will this project help your archive to build relationships with schools and run more school engagement work in the future?

We actively encourage applications from organisations that don’t currently engage with schools and want to use their project to take their first steps in this area.

Assessment criterion: ‘Impact’

Question 4: Please list briefly how you would spend the £1,600 grant.

For example:
£[…] for […] days of staff time – [staff member’s job title]
£[…] for [materials / reprographics]
£[…] for coach hire for students to visit
and so on

Assessment criterion: ‘Delivery and management’

Question 5: How will you share learning from your project with other archives? (maximum 300 words)

Prompts:
Will you speak at a regional or thematic archive network meeting?
Would you be willing for us to write up a case study about your project for our website or the Discover programme?
How will you act as a regional champion for the programme, encouraging other archives to take part in Discover Creative Careers Month in the future?

Assessment criterion: ‘Knowledge sharing’

Part 3: questions about your organisation (not assessed)

Question 6: Full legal name of your organisation

Question 7: Any other names that your organisation is commonly known by

Question 8: Organisation’s address

Question 9: Organisation’s postcode

Question 10: Charity number (if relevant)

Question 11: Company number (if relevant)

Question 12: Lead contact’s full name

Question 13: Lead contact’s email address

Question 14: Please select from the list below the most appropriate category for your organisation.
Please note that your collections and project must be held in England. The response options are:

  • International organisation
  • Local authority
  • Other UK public body
  • UK charity
  • UK company including Community Interest Companies
  • UK educational institution
  • Other (please specify)

Question 15: Please select from the list below the region where your organisation is based.
If your organisation has multiple locations, please select the region where you will carry out the project. The options are:

  • East and South East
  • London
  • Midlands
  • North West
  • North East and Yorkshire
  • South West
  • Other (please specify)

Question 16: Please select from the list below the size of your entire organisation based on the number of contracted staff members.
If you are an archive within a wider parent organisation, please select your answer based on your parent organisation. The options are:

  • Fewer than 10 employees
  • Fewer than 50 employees
  • Fewer than 250 employees
  • More than 250 employees

Question 17: How much does your archive currently work with schools?
This question is not assessed and we welcome applications from archives that have never worked with schools before. You will be asked how much your archive currently does the following activities on a scale of ‘Never’, ‘Less than once a year’, ‘Once or twice a year’, ‘Once every two or three months’, ‘Roughly once a month’ or ‘More than once a month’:

  • School groups visiting you in person at the archive
  • Your archive visiting schools in person
  • Your archive running online sessions for schools
  • Your archive creating resources for schools to use independently

Question 18: Do you have a school (or schools) in mind that you would like to work with for this project?
This is not required at this stage – feel free to write ‘unknown’.

Question 19: Please tell us where you heard about this grant.
Select all that apply out of the following options:

  • The National Archives’ website
  • Social media
  • Jiscmail – Archives-NRA list
  • Staff at The National Archives
  • Other (please specify)