Visits to the Record Office are great learning experiences for children. They can see our strongrooms and look at original documents, not just copies. Archives are exciting and even children who are normally unenthusiastic about learning are interested when confronted with a document centuries old!
All of our visits are tailored to your needs, and activities based around your topics and your local area. We encourage teachers to meet with our Education Archivist before the visit, when you can see the Record Office yourself, choose which documents the children will work with from a selection provided. If you would prefer, or are not able to come to us, visits can be arranged by telephone or email.
We can cover almost any topic, from Victorian Life to the World Wars, from the Holocaust to the history of your own local area or school. Our activities are ideal for cross-curricular, literacy and numeracy activities.
The cost of a visit varies depending on how much preparation is required. As a guide, a straightforward half day visit would cost £100. A full day would be £200. Development time for projects is £250 per day + VAT.
Most visits are held in our searchroom, which is comfortable and well lit. We have an Interactive Whiteboard that we use to engage students and help them understand the original documents.
Recent Visits
Silver Tree Primary School, Ushaw Moor, Year 4
This visit was based around the Northern Rebellion of 1569. The children started with a tour of our strongrooms and learnt about Tudor handwriting (including writing with Quill pens, which was popular!). They were then given characters to research, based on names from a register of children baptised in Durham in 1547-1551. They were given an occupation (to ensure an even mix of rich and poor) and used archives and reference books to find out more about Tudor Durham and to imagine where their characters might have lived and what their lives might have been like. They were then told about the rebellion and a debate was held in which the children had to decide whether or not they would fight. After the rebellion failed, all the children had to write a letter to the Queen begging for pardon. It was a very enjoyable session and a good chance for the children to develop literacy skills in reading (understanding the archives) speaking and listening (during the debate) and writing (the letters).
Finchale Primary School, Newton Hall, Year 2
The children started with a tour of the strongrooms and an activity where they had to sort a selection of children’s names into “old” and “new”. The names were taken from our records and were real children baptised in 2002 and 1909. The children then did one activity based on sorting photographs into chronological order and another on a map of Durham. After a break, they listened to an extract from “Listen to the Soldier”, a collection of recordings from interviews of men who served with the Durham Light Infantry. The day was both enjoyable for the children and successful in terms of re-enforcing their learning.
Durham Gilesgate, Year 7
As part of Cultural Hubs, three classes of Year 7 from Durham Gilesgate School visited us in March 2008 to research “characters” based on real people who lived in Durham in 1913. They then used these characters to explore the issue of women’s suffrage and held a debate at Beamish Museum on whether women should be granted the vote. They went on to work with Dance City in Newcastle to choreograph a “protest” incorporating dance and music, which was then staged at Beamish Museum in July 2008. In March 2009, two classes of the new Year 7 came to the Record Office to repeat the experience, although without the dance.
