History tells stories about people, places and things to help explain to young people of any age why the world is as it is as they grow up and begin to question it.
Schools will choose different periods and settings and topics to cove during different Key Stages, but all of them are pretty well guaranteed to be rooted in actual places that can be visited, explored and enjoyed.
It has been a curious fact that for many years primary classes have studied the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods, while secondary school syllabuses have been more engaged in post-medieval periods. For a while secondary courses involved a great deal of ‘topic work’. While this discipline still exists, the recent examination syllabuses have returned to an emphasis on historical periods and links.
But all periods and topics provide fantastic opportunities for school visits. We are so lucky that so many general and specialist museums and visitor centres exist in the UK. The problem is not a shortage of possibilities but how one sifts through the available opportunities to make choices.
The Historical Association website carries information about course, conferences, study tours, and the Association has published ‘The Historian’ magazine for many years. Handsam is also happy to help, please contact us on 03332 070737 or email [email protected].
Most venues will have teaching materials and activities geared to students’ different ages and aptitudes whether at primary or secondary level. All of them will set out to develop students’ ability to understand, analyse and evaluate key features and characteristics of historical periods and events studied.
Some venues will be easy to identify because they fit neatly with the period and topic being studied but others may offer new possibilities, not least to the teachers themselves. Teachers need and deserve their own stimulation.
Over the next four years there will be an upsurge in visits to the First World War battlefields. Because of this there will be an increase in companies offering visits and requirement for battlefield guides, especially in northern France and Belgium. There are bound to be discrepancies in guides’ knowledge and experience. Close research into the credentials of the company you are contracting with, and the company’s guarantees about guides, will ensure that your group will not be disappointed.
Main organisations:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Inclusion: NASEN
Thought of visiting?
Roman Vindolanda and Roman Army Museum at Hadrian’s Wall
Viriconium, Wroxeter, Shropshire
The Jorvik Viking Centre, York
Offa’s Dyke Trail and Chirk Castle
The National Trust for Scotland
Clan Donald Visitor Centre, Isle of Skye
Bosworth Battlefield Visitor Centre
Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
Exeter Cathedral Education Centre
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth
East Anglia Railway Museum, Colchester
The National Tramway Museum, Matlock
Ring the bell on a fire engine, drive a bus or visit our restoration zone.
The Ipswich Transport Museum has the largest collection of transport items in Britain devoted to just one town. Everything was either made or used in and around Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk.
Follow the story around this beautiful Georgian building taking in domestic life and childhood in Colchester over the past 300 years.
This beautiful Tudor mansion is the jewel in the crown of Ipswich's historic past boasting over 500 years of history.
Explore the period rooms from the Tudor kitchen to the sumptuous Georgian saloon and the beautifully detailed Victorian wing and much more!
This picturesque fortified mansion was built for Lord Hastings, who was dramatically seized and executed by Richard III in 1483.
Hastings’ descendants still believe they have a direct line to the throne of England.
The remains of Christchurch Castle include parts of the mound-top keep, and more unusually the 12th-century riverside chamber block or 'Constable's House'. This very early example of domestic architecture includes a rare Norman chimney.
History
The construction of a castle and monastery transformed the fortified settlement of Twyneham.
Colchester Castle is the largest Norman Keep in Europe. Constructed on the foundations of the Temple of Claudius, built when Colchester was the first Roman capital of Britain, the Castle Museum today reveals many fascinating layers of history to visitors.
Pilsdon has a long history of occupation. Flint tools over 10,000 years old and two Bronze Age burial mounds are evidence that the site was in use long before the hill fort was built.
Like the other hill forts in Dorset, Pilsdon was abandoned after the Roman conquest, after which it's thought that it was used for rough grazing, much as it is today.
The vast late 17th-century mansion is set in a beautiful 283-hectare (700-acre) deer park, landscaped by 'Capability' Brown and immortalised in Turner's paintings.
This enormous 19th-century neo-Norman castle sits between Snowdonia and the Menai Strait.
It's crammed with fascinating items, such as a one-ton slate bed made for Queen Victoria, elaborate carvings, plasterwork and mock-Norman furniture. It also has an outstanding collection of paintings.
Today the Keep Military Museum is a striking landmark on the Bridport Road in Dorchester. Completed in 1879, it was designed to resemble a Norman Castle, and is built of Portland stone which gives it a white appearance. In 'British Barracks 1600-1914', James Douet explains that:
Schools Into Europe is a family run business with over 55 years' experience of organising school trips and school tours in Europe, including the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Poland.
The museum tells the story of the famous Staffordshire Regiment and its predecessors while also looking forward to its role in the Mercian Regiment. 300 years of heroic history are shown through exhibits and displays, live interpretation, special exhibitions and a unique full-scale World War I Trench System. The museum is open all year round and runs an extensive event programme.
Ranger’s House is an elegant Georgian villa in Greenwich Park built in 1723 to be the official residence of the 'Ranger of Greenwich Park'. From 1815 this post was held by Princess Sophia Matilda, niece of George III.
We offer an exciting and varied programme of exhibitions to cater for every taste. Artists past and present are featured, from big names such as the Impressionists through to young, up and coming regional artists. There's something for everyone in our fun-packed diary of family activities, and our series of talks and tours.
The Bakehouse Centre was specially converted from a former bakehouse and two cottages to house today's Museum.
Museum Staff are pleased to welcome visitors and offer a guided tour if requested. A printed guide to the collection is also available.
There are new exhibitions on the maritime history and a photographic history of the village.
Established in 1697, Surgeons' Hall Museum is the major medical museum in Scotland, and one of Edinburgh's many tourist attractions. The museum is recognised as a collection of national significance by the Scottish Government.
Currently the Museum is closed for Heritage Lottery Funded Redevelopment. It will reopen in Summer 2015.
Walk with Butterflies, the world’s most beautiful and delicate creatures as they fly around you.
At the London Canal Museum you can see inside a narrowboat cabin, learn about the history of London's canals, about the cargoes carried, the people who lived and worked on the waterways, and the horses that pulled their boats. Peer down into the unique heritage of a huge Victorian ice well used to store ice imported from Norway and brought by ship and canal boat to be stored.
Tilgate Park has so much to offer from stunning lakes, lawns and gardens to miles of woodland and bridleways for long leisurely walks. As well as all this Tilgate Park also boasts some excellent facilities:
Kirkham House is a well-preserved late medieval house, built of local stone.
It lies near the centre of the town of Paignton, which 500 years ago was a small village clustered around its parish church, not far from the palace of the bishops of Exeter.
Fully restored and re-equipped with its cannon, this is one of 103 ingeniously-designed artillery towers, built from 1805 at vulnerable points around the south and east coasts to resist threatened Napoleonic invasion.
Welcome to England's Greatest Elizabethan house.
Welcome to Burghley, William Cecil’s ancestral home. This palatial Elizabethan prodigy house is still a much loved family home and we invite you to explore its historic collection of paintings, ceramics and works of art, many of which still stand where they were first recorded in 1688.
Market Hall Museum is an historic museum operated by Heritage and Culture Warwickshire.
Built in 1670, the Market Hall originally contained arches on all four walls (later converted to windows), to provide under-cover space for stalls.
Nestled in a medieval deer-park, Knole is vast, complex and full of hidden treasures. Originally an Archbishop’s palace, the house passed through royal hands to the Sackville family – Knole’s inhabitants from 1603 to today.
The Cathedral is the work of a local architect, Alexander Ross (1834-1925), himself a member of the congregation. The foundation-stone was laid in 1866 by Dr Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, the first official act in Scotland by an English Archbishop since the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in 1689.
The Bushcraft Company offer residential school trips with a difference, taking students into the wild and giving them real back-to-nature experiences they will never forget.
A 15-year-old boy fell 60ft over the edge of a cliff whilst on a geography school trip, miraculously only suffering minor injuries.