During the summer term of 2023, specialist SEND practitioner Noel Hayden and the Education Team worked with a group of post 16+ students from Henry Tyndale SEND School in Hampshire. We worked with the students at their school and they also visited The National Archives, to find out more about the records in our collection and the ‘Spirit of Invention’ exhibition.
Using the exhibition and the Victorian BT Design Registers as their inspiration, the students went on to design and make their very own inventions. Each design was centred around the themes of well-being, keeping clean and looking after yourself. The students produced some wonderful ideas to create their proto-types including a ‘Disco Bathroom’, ‘Laser Nail Cutter’ and a ‘Super Clothes-Hanger’ that can organise clothes by colour and de-crease them at the same time!
At the end of the project, the students returned to The National Archives to celebrate their hard work. Friends and colleagues were also invited to view the students’ inventions on display in the ‘Spirit of Invention’ exhibition space, and to hear some of the students give short presentations about their designs.
Thanks to the work of the Exhibitions team, three of the students also saw their inventions animated and set to music!
See all of the students’ wonderful inventions and their ideas:
This project was kindly funded by Friends of The National Archives.
