Classroom resources

Our taught sessions and online resources cover a variety of time periods and places. Many contain structured investigations for use directly in the classroom. Others are more suited for research and preparation. They all allow access into our unique collections.

Filter by

Remove all filters

All Classroom resource 

Showing 277 resources
Classroom resource

1833 Factory Act

Did it solve the problems of children in factories?
Classroom resource

1834 Poor Law

What did people think of the new Poor Law?
Classroom resource

1919 race riots

How significant a factor was race in the riots of 1919?
Classroom resource

19th century mining disaster

What happened at the Trimdon Grange Mining Disaster?
Classroom resource

19th century people

What can we tell from this photograph?
Classroom resource

19th century prison ships

What do these documents reveal about attitudes to crime and punishment?
Classroom resource

A ‘right’ to relief?

In what ways did paupers hold the Poor Law to account?
Classroom resource

A Victorian prison

Why were Victorian Prisons so tough?
Classroom resource

Adolf Hitler

Was Hitler a 'passionate lunatic'?
Classroom resource

African nurses

What part did they play in British health services?
Classroom resource

All on board!

What can we learn from old board games?
Classroom resource

American Revolution

What political ideas in the colonies influenced the American Revolution?
Classroom resource

Archives Live: Windrush 75

Special live event from The National Archives
Classroom resource

Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

From Conflict to Peace - 25 Years On
Classroom resource

Belsen concentration camp 1945

What did the British find when they entered Belsen concentration camp?
Classroom resource

BGFA25 – Discussion Activity

From Conflict to Peace - 25 Years On
Classroom resource

Boston Tea Party

How was the 1773 Boston Tea Party significant for the American Revolution?
Classroom resource

Bound for Britain

Experiences of immigration to the UK
Classroom resource

British Response to V1 and V2

How did Britain respond to the threat of attack by missiles in 1943?
Classroom resource

Bulaya Chanda

What do these documents reveal about Bulaya Chanda, soldier and ‘showman’?
Classroom resource

Bussa’s rebellion

How and why did the enslaved Africans of Barbados rebel in 1816?
Classroom resource

Cats and mice

What tactics were used by suffragettes, police and government?
Classroom resource

Chertsey

What was Chertsey like in the Middle Ages?
Classroom resource

Child migration

Why were children sent to Canada in 1869-1913?
Classroom resource

Children’s Clothing in the Workhouse

What do the letters tell us about pauper children's clothing in the workhouse?
Classroom resource

Christmas is cancelled!

What were Cromwell’s main political and religious aims for the Commonwealth 1650-1660?
Classroom resource

Civil Rights in America

Follow the progress of the struggle through the archives
Classroom resource

Commonwealth migration since 1945

What was the context and impact of migration in modern Britain?
Classroom resource

Crime and Punishment: Robert Peel

How was law enforcement changed by Sir Robert Peel’s new Metropolitan Police Force?
Classroom resource

Criminal petitions

What do they reveal about the justice system?
Classroom resource

Discover the Dissolution

How did the Dissolution change my local area?
Classroom resource

Domesday Book

What can we learn about England in the 11th century?
Classroom resource

Downing Street Declaration (KS4)

Key Stage Four Resources - Lesson One
Classroom resource

Dr James Barry

Why was he significant in 19th century medicine?
Classroom resource

Eden’s last stand

Why did Anthony Eden resign in 1938?
Classroom resource

Edward the Confessor

What does the Domesday Abbreviato tells us about Edward the Confessor?
Classroom resource

Elizabethan propaganda

How did England try to show Spain planned to invade in 1588?
Classroom resource

Empire Windrush: Caribbean migration

Why did people from the Caribbean travel to live and work in Britain?
Classroom resource

Empire Windrush: Early Black Presence

What do the sources reveal about an early Black presence in Britain?
Classroom resource

Empire Windrush: Life for Migrants in the 1940s and 50s

What do these documents reveal about life for Caribbean migrants to Britain in the 1940s and 1950s?
Classroom resource

Empire Windrush: The Notting Hill Carnival

What do the sources reveal about the significance of the Notting Hill Carnival and why it began?
Classroom resource

English Reformation c1527-1590

How did state and people respond to religious change?
Classroom resource

Evacuation to Shropshire

What happened to children who were sent away?
Classroom resource

Fifties Britain

Never so good? Or too good to be true?
Classroom resource

Food Glorious Food

What was food like for a child in the Victorian workhouse?
Classroom resource

Foundling Hospital

What were conditions like for children in the care of the Foundling Hospital?
Classroom resource

Framlingham Castle

What was the primary function of Framlingham Castle in the ‘Middle Ages’?
Classroom resource

French Revolution

How did the British react to July 1789?
Classroom resource

From Outbreak to Archive: Tales of Public Health

What do the documents reveal about how government and society dealt with public health in the past?
Classroom resource

General Haig

Butcher of the Somme or hero of Amiens?
Classroom resource

God blew and they were scattered

Did God really help the English defeat the Spanish Armada?
Classroom resource

Going to School in the Workhouse

How was school for pauper children different, and what was the same?
Classroom resource

Gordon Ford’s story

What was it like to be an airman in the Second World War?
Classroom resource

Government posters

How did Britain encourage people at home to help win the war?
Classroom resource

Gunpowder Plot

Can you uncover the plans of the plotters?
Classroom resource

Have we underestimated the Victorian Poor?

To what extent did the Victorian Poor accept their fate in the workhouse?
Classroom resource

Health and the Poor Law

To what degree did the Poor Law make an important contribution to Public Health?
Classroom resource

Henry VIII court rules

How did Henry VIII get up in the morning?
Classroom resource

Hitler assassination plan

How did the British plan to kill Hitler?
Classroom resource

Hong Kong and the Opium Wars

How did Hong Kong become part of the British Empire?
Classroom resource

How we were taught

What was school like 100 years ago?
Classroom resource

Huguenots in England

What was the experience of Huguenot migrants in seventeenth century England?
Classroom resource

Irish Partition

Why was Ireland divided in 1921?
Classroom resource

Jacobite propaganda

What was the point of Jacobite propaganda?
Classroom resource

Jews in England 1066

Why did Jews settle in England after 1066?
Classroom resource

Jews in England 1216-72

What was the relationship between Christians and Jews from 1216-72?
Classroom resource

Jews in England 1290

Why did Edward I expel the Jews in 1290?
Classroom resource

Jutland: Death at sea

Were lives wasted when the Indefatigable sank?
Classroom resource

Kenilworth Castle (part two)

What do the medieval records reveal?
Classroom resource

LGBTQ+ Rights in Britain

How have changes in laws and attitudes affected LGBTQ+ people in Britain?
Classroom resource

Life aboard the Titanic

Who travelled on the fateful maiden voyage?
Classroom resource

Life in 1950s Britain

What can we find out about life in 1950s Britain using documents from the time?
Classroom resource

Life in 1960s Britain

What can we find out about life in 1960s Britain using documents from the time?
Classroom resource

Loyalty and dissent

How did Indian soldiers respond to the First World War?
Classroom resource

Mangrove Nine protest

What does this reveal about police brutality and racism in '70s Britain?
Classroom resource

May Fourth Movement 1919

Why did the Paris Peace Conference lead to a mass protest movement in China?
Classroom resource

Medieval castles

What was their purpose and significance?
Classroom resource

Medieval seals

What can seals tell us about medieval times?
Classroom resource

Medieval Society

What roles did women play in Medieval times?
Classroom resource

Mental Health on Record

What do the documents reveal about the understanding of mental health in the past?
Classroom resource

Native North Americans

What was early contact like between English colonists and Native Americans?
Classroom resource

Partition of British India

What can The National Archives documents reveal about the partition of British India?
Classroom resource

Past pleasures

How did the Victorians have fun?
Classroom resource

Punishment in the workhouse – Lesson One

What can ‘pauper voices’ reveal about punishments for workhouse children?
Classroom resource

Punishment in the workhouse – Lesson Two

What can ‘pauper voices’ reveal about attitudes towards punishments in the workhouse?
Classroom resource

Queen Anne

How can we find out about her?
Classroom resource

Rebels in the records

What can we learn from documents that show how people ‘rebelled’ in the past?
Classroom resource

Richard II

Were the troubles facing England in the 1370s and 1380s due to Richard II’s age and inexperience?
Classroom resource

Rob Roy

A Victorian railway accident
Classroom resource

Role of a Queen – Mary I and Anne

What can we find out about the roles of Queen Mary I and Queen Anne?
Classroom resource

Seafarers’ Stories

How can we tell the stories of the Mirpuri, Bengali and Panjabi seafarers who travelled to Britain in the 1920s-30s?
Classroom resource

Selling the Victorians

Victorians for sale! Has advertising changed from Victorian times?
Classroom resource

Sixties Britain

A social and cultural revolution?
Classroom resource

Slavery

How did the Abolition Acts of 1807 and 1833 affect the slave trade?
Classroom resource

Sugar

What can original documents tell us about the history of sugar?
Classroom resource

The Boxers of Whitechapel

What do the documents reveal about the inhabitants?
Classroom resource

The Chinese Civil War

Why did the fighting between the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party happen?
Classroom resource

The Holocaust

Key documents from The National Archives
Classroom resource

The Home Front

How did people prepare for the war at home?
Classroom resource

The Independence of Bangladesh in 1971

What can British documents tell us about the creation of Bangladesh?
Classroom resource

The King, the Crown and the Colonel

How did Thomas Blood try to steal the Crown Jewels in 1671?
Classroom resource

The Search for ‘Terra Australis’

What did Captain Cook’s secret mission involve?
Classroom resource

The South African War

How did the British conduct war in 1899-1902?
Classroom resource

Tobacco

James I & VI: How was tobacco viewed, consumed, and traded in the Stuart period?
Classroom resource

Trimdon

What was it like living in a late 19th century mining town?
Classroom resource

Tudor Entertainment

What was the effect of the early playhouses?
Classroom resource

Twenties Britain (part one)

Decade of conflict, realignment and change?
Classroom resource

Twenties Britain (part two)

Decade of conflict, realignment and change?
Classroom resource

Ugandan Asians

What was the impact of the expulsion from Uganda on the lives of British Asians?
Classroom resource

Uncovering LGBTQ+ lives in the archive

What types of sources might be useful to find out about the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the past?
Classroom resource

Uncovering the past

How can we use photographs to find out about the past?
Classroom resource

Victorian family history

How can we find out about the life of a Victorian child?
Classroom resource

Victorian Health Reform

How did the Victorians view compulsory vaccination?
Classroom resource

Victorian homes

Was there much difference between rich and poor homes?
Classroom resource

Victorian lives

How was life different in Victorian times?
Classroom resource

Walter Tull

How can we use sources to find out about him?
Classroom resource

Wartime Propaganda

How did Britain try to keep the support of West African peoples?
Classroom resource

What caused the 1832 Great Reform Act?

Political and social reform in 19th century Britain
Classroom resource

What is a Jubilee?

What can we find out about Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee?
Classroom resource

What was Chartism?

Political and social reform in 19th century Britain
Classroom resource

Who was Noor Khan?

What can documents reveal about her role during the Second World War?
Classroom resource

William Shakespeare

What can we find out about his life?
Classroom resource

Workhouse Women

How were women treated in the Victorian workhouse?
Classroom resource

World Cup 1966

Did England rig the result?
Classroom resource

Zeppelin raids

How did First World War Zeppelin raids affect British civilians?