School Teachers

Courses offered by Archive Service

'Study Support is learning activity outside normal lessons which young people take part in voluntarily. Its purpose is to improve young peoples' motivation, build their self-esteem and help them become effective learners

'DfES- Extending Opportunity: a national framework for study support

We offer a number of courses, listed below, which have been developed in association with Staffordshire County Council's Quality Learning Services (QLS). These are suitable mainly for groups of "Gifted and Talented" students.

Group sizes can range from 4-5 pupils up to a maximum of 18.

The aim of these projects to is enable talented and gifted pupils from across the county to utilize the unique resources held by the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service. The process of looking at original primary source material in a supportive environment enriches the learning process as well as enhancing the pupils' sense of place and community.

These projects are designed to challenge pupils. They offer both a unique opportunity to use original archive material and a unique learning experience.

Because these courses involve the use of unique and irreplaceable historical documents they are offered only at the Learning and Archive Resource Centre at Staffordshire Record Office.

If you are interested in using any of these courses with your pupils, please contact Matthew Blake, Archivist (Access and Learning) at Staffordshire Record Office for further information. E-mail: matthew.blake@staffordshire.gov.uk.

Medicine and public health

This session is history based and has been successfully used by mainly KS3 history classes but also A-level groups. The project aims to bring to pupils' attention the wide range of sources available for the study of public health issues through the ages. How did people access medical advice before the NHS and chemist shops? Who had access to the first hospitals? Who didn't? It covers subject areas such as

Remedies, such as a 16^th century remedy "to make wormes come out of the teeth".
Epidemics - pupils get the opportunity to look at an original document from 1348 concerning the Black Death (in Latin!).
Public Health - such as instructions for precautionary measures to prevent cholera in Madeley.
Physical and Mental Health Issues - a letter on the treatment of the insane with remarks on the nature, causes and cure of mental derangement by Thomas Bakewell
Causes of death - account of death of a 16^th century school child due to poisoning of the wound.

A study of the early modern borough of Stafford

This session is a History or Citizenship project. It can and has been used by pupils of all ages with little knowledge of the period. Some very interesting work on citizenship and, for example, Information Technology been based around this project. The project aims to raise issues of religious tolerance. Charity - who pays for the poor and needy in society? Local democracy - who governs? The session covers subject areas such as

The poor - 1575 entry showing Kirton Charity payments to the needy and poor of the borough.
Charity - Will of Dame Margaret Temple showing payments to prisoners in the county gaol.
Religious tolerance - account of the execution of Robert Sutton, a Catholic seminary priest in Stafford.
Political power, who rules? - 17^th century poem "Stafford, why a Mayor?"
The Borough of Stafford - account of the visit of Elizabeth I to Stafford.

The session comes with an introduction to the period and themes within the topic that can be emailed out to teachers.

The English Civil War

This session is based upon the events leading up to the civil war, taking pupils through the war itself and looking, in part at least, at the aftermath of the wars.

The session covers subject areas such as

Causes of the war - late payment of ship money
Effects of the war on society - George Byrch (mason) and a fight over drinking to the "Kings health".
The war in Staffordshire - account of the battle of Hopton Heath.
Personalities and the war in Staffordshire - letters from Cromwell, Prince Rupert and Charles I.
The aftermath of the war - declaration of Sir Thos Fairfax on disbanding forces

These sessions take one and a half hours. After a general introduction the first task is general palaeography (reading old handwriting), pupils are asked to transcribe (copy out) in full the document before them, each pupil has a document for themselves.

To help them with this they are given a crib (a full copy of the document with words taken out). The crib acts as a guide to the handwriting.

Once they have done this pupils are asked to read through the document to gain an understanding of what the document is trying to say, who wrote it and why? The final task is to question the document, is it a reliable source? What does it tell us? How can it be challenged?

The session ends with a short summary, pupils are encouraged to feedback on their findings and some interpretation is given by the archivist. Teachers are given full transcripts of the documents so that pupils can check their work once back at the school and should they wish follow up the sessions in class.

Crime and Punishment

This is a session aimed at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 pupils. During the visit pupils will look at documents relating to :

Conformity and the law which looks at religious dissenters and a case of wife-selling at Milwich
Punishments such as the nailing by the ears to a post
Gaols which includes the report on a women's prison in Parramatta, Australia
Transportation such as in the case of William Hilditch, sentenced to transportation to America
Riots looks in detail at one case arising from the Chartist riots in Staffordshire

The visit encourages pupils to engage with themes of punishment, treatment of prisoners, justice, and in general, how society responds to challenges to the status quo.

The response of pupils to our courses has been very positive.

We also work with QLS to provide a course for teachers on the use of archives in teaching history. If this interests you please contact Matthew Blake, or Roger Emmett, Senior History Adviser at QLS.
E-mail: roger.emmett@staffordshire.gov.uk

Last Modified: 15/01/2008 09:26:58
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