Welcome to Education Resources

This part of the site aims to help teachers and other educators get the most from Collections Online.

Here you will find information on how to use the site and the ways in which the objects and information it contains can be used to help support the National Curriculum.

The site provides an excellent opportunity for cross-curricular study and will be of particular benefit to teachers wishing to integrate ICT throughout the Curriculum. Although, at the moment, we are concentrating predominantly on the History curriculum, we also suggest ways in which the site could enhance the study of English, Maths, Design and Technology, Art and Design and Geography.

The site is intended to be of use to teachers and students from Key Stage One right through to postgraduate level. However, in this section we will concentrate on its relevance to Key Stages One, Two and Three of the National Curriculum for England. The ways in which its contents support the National Curriculum and links to the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) Schemes of Work are clearly identified.

Resources

Key Stage 1 HTML | Key Stage 1 PDF (86KB)
Key Stage 2 HTML | Key Stage 2 PDF (101KB)
Key Stage 3 HTML | Key Stage 3 PDF (62KB)
Class Museum Project HTML | Class Museum Project PDF (68KB)

Help with using PDF files

We plan to add further information and resources to Collections Online in the future. We would welcome your feedback and any ideas on how we could improve the site. Please use the Contact Us link at the top of the page to do this.

General Advice About Using The Site

The site is intended to be used flexibly and creatively and we hope it will help support teaching on many different levels. All the photographs of the objects, together with the supporting information, can be printed out and photocopied as required for educational purposes. The Search the Collections option is designed to be straight forward and easily accessible, providing an ideal opportunity for pupils to gain experience of working with a relatively large database. Searches can be undertaken by such criteria as collection type eg toys, production date eg 1837-1901, material, place etc. or by a combination of criteria. This can be useful when studying either one particular topic eg mining in Victorian Britain, or developments in design and technology over a period of time eg. 20^th Century fashion, or the development of the miner’s lamp.

Teachers are advised that the site contains a section about Symington’s Corset factory which was based in Leicestershire from 1860 to 1990. As a result, if general searches are carried out eg all items made between 1837 and 1901, then a quite a few items of ladies underwear will be found. To avoid this we recommend selecting a collection category first.

A great strength of the site is that every photograph is supported by details in the form of a record card containing all the essential information about the object in a concise and accessible manner. These records contain the basic facts about the object and are presented in the same way as a standard museum record card. The sections to be completed on this card can be applied to any object and can be used as a basis for helping pupils to really study an object carefully and to start asking questions about it. We have created two blank printable versions of an object information sheet - one suitable for use at KS1/2 and one at KS2/3. These could be used as part of a Class Museum project or simply as a way of prompting historical enquiry and discovering what objects can tell us about the past. A glossary relating to each main group of collections is also provided.

Looking at objects can inspire us to think about the past and ask questions such as:

Who would have used this object?
How would they have used it?
Why?
What for?
What would it have felt like to use this object or

History is about people – everybody – we all have a part in history. The study of ordinary objects reminds us of this, and when used in conjunction with other sources such as maps, directories, census returns, newspaper reports, oral testimony etc they become an enormously powerful and thought provoking resource to develop understanding, discussion and empathy.

Teachers might also find the following websites helpful:

www.learningcurve.gov.uk – the education resource site from National Archives (Public Record Office). This site provides excellent access to a whole range of original documents relating to aspects of the National Curriculum. It is of particular use when used in conjunction with this site for the study of coal mining in Victorian Britain.

www.standards.dfes.gov.uk – ideas and guidance as well as various schemes of work for the National Curriculum.

www.24hourmuseum.org.uk – a site containing information about Museums throughout the country. It also has a useful section for teachers.