From slavery to citizenship, the Nottinghamshire experience

What did we do?

Staff at Nottinghamshire Archives had worked with local African Caribbean history for sometime, assisting researchers, providing references for public enquiries and helping local African Caribbean groups put together displays about the 2007 commemoration of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Combining the research they had collected and their growing knowledge of the subject area, staff wished to expand their work in this area and wanted to meet the needs of local secondary schools by developing resources on citizenship and African Caribbean heritage. The project built neatly on previous work, developed partnerships with local organisations and increased the skills and experience of staff in learning and developing relationships with schools.

The team from Nottinghamshire Archives included an archivist, an archives assistant and a researcher, supported by Davey Ivens, MLA East Midlands museum education worker.  Davey worked with archives staff to develop a project plan, give advice, a regional overview and help develop the learning packages.

The project created two learning packages, ‘George Africanus’ and ‘Abolition of the Slave Trade’,which address the citizenship and history curricula and are aimed at Key stages 3 and 4. Nottinghamshire Archives worked with local teachers and community representatives who acted as 'consultants' to aid the development of the learning packages. Partnerships were created with teachers from Elliot Durham School and Kirk Hallam Community College, representatives from the African Caribbean community and representatives from the Initial Teacher Trainers course at the University of Nottingham.

The first draft of the materials was commented upon by the 'consultants' group.  This process proved invaluable as it helped to focus the project; for example users did not need general material on slavery as this material is readily available elsewhere, rather they wanted material specific to Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

Once the learning packages were ready, archive staff worked with Kirk Hallam Community College to pilot one of the modules. This involved contributing to a classroom session and using feed back from students and staff to fine tune the learning packages.

The researched, images and documents were digitised and uploaded onto the emsource website, where they are free to download. The benefits of the project are paying off already with plans developing to continue the partnership links made during the project. Chris Weir, senior archivist, will be returning to Kirk Hallam Community College in 2008 to deliver a session to students on heritage marketing.  The project has proved really valuable to Nottinghamshire Archives of interest to other archives and staff have delivered talks and presentations to the Society of Archivists and other interested groups about the project.

Learning outcomes

• The Archives gained better links with schools in the areas and with the Initial Teacher Training course at University of Nottingham – all of which will be of value for the future,
• The project has supported Nottinghamshire Archives in developing closer working links with the local African Caribbean community,
• Nottinghamshire Archives had been encouraged to develop similar projects with local communities.  For example it has worked closely with a group in the St Ann’s district of Nottingham to develop a Heritage Lottery Fund bid for the ‘Embrace’ project. This project aims to record and preserve experiences of young people in St Ann’s and has resulted in young people using the archive and learning more about it offers,
• The involvement of different partners in the project has ensured that Nottinghamshire Archives’ education work will be more sustainable in the future.

Staff at Nottinghamshire Archives have:

• Developed a higher level of skill and understanding of working with teachers and schools,
• Increased their use of the Inspiring Learning for All framework of Generic Learning Outcomes and Social Learning Outcomes, 
• Worked towards their aim of becoming a centre for learning and providing opportunities for new learning,
• Developed new skills in a range of ICT areas, including uploading images and information to websites,
• Developed a greater understanding of the National Curriculum and how to use it,
• Used the opportunity to be supported by teaching staff and the MLA East Midlands museum education worker to increase their confidence and knowledge in delivering activities to school groups.