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 info@schooltripsadvisor.org.uk.
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
Take in an enormous sweep of Scottish history as experienced by the Irvine family who lived in Drum Castle for over 650 years, from the 14th century onwards.
Guided tours are available for school groups in the Castle and gardens. The ranger service also provides a service for the Old Wood of Drum.
Notre-Dame de Paris, also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a historic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France.
Standing on a rocky promontory guarding the lovely anchorage between Bryher and Tresco, this round tower is one of the few surviving Cromwellian fortifications in Britain, built after the conquest of the Royalist Scillies in 1651.
Set in rural Wiltshire, Lacock village is famous for its picturesque streets, historic buildings and more recently as a TV and film location.
Discover over 750 years of history, including Britain's tallest spire, the world's best preserved original Magna Carta (1215) and Europe's oldest working clock, on a tour with one of our volunteer guides. Built between 1220 and 1258, in one architectural style, Salisbury is Britain's finest 13th century Gothic Cathedral.
Visit this impressive restored 18th-century watermill built on the site of a mill mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086. The mill currently produces stoneground wholemeal flour from organic wheat. The team also pack porridge oats and jumbo oats, and mix and pack their own museli. All are available to buy onsite.
The Victorian sewers beneath Brighton comprise an extensive network of brick-lined tunnels. They are open to the public on pre-booked guided tours and have become a popular tourist attraction.
The earthwork remains of one of the largest Roman amphitheatres in Britain, built in the early 2nd century.
It served the Roman city of Corinium (now Cirencester), then second only in size and importance to London, and had a capacity of around 8,000 spectators. Later fortified against Saxon invaders.
The Whereat Trail
Tavistock Museum is a town museum which has permanent exhibitions relating to its monastic, market, and mining past. It is also a community museum and each year has new exhibitions relating to different community interests and organisations.
The Locksmith's House is located in a Victorian lockmaker’s house and workshops, that are a typical example of many of the small business premises that occupied a great deal of Willenhall and the surrounding area.
It is popularly thought that Thomas Crapper invented the W.C., and that the vulgar word for faeces is a derivative of his name, but neither belief is true. However, etymologists attest that the Amercian word, "crapper", meaning the W.C. is directly from his name.
Discover the humble birthplace of great railway pioneer, George Stephenson, whose entire family lived in just one room. Our costumed guide tells the story of how challenging life was for mining families, like George’s, that once crammed into this now charming little stone cottage, nestled in a pretty garden near the river Tyne.
This experience follows the lives of children in East Anglia in World War II. How children lived and to hear about the lives of children then.
Four Study Areas
Home Front / Sea Prince
What is the universe made of? How did it start? What is a Higgs boson particle?
Physicists at CERN are seeking answers, using some of the world's most powerful particle accelerators
A visit to this massively atmospheric museum includes a compelling and informative guided tour. You’ll be walked through a history of Radar and Air Defence from 1935 to the present day Space Defence Systems.
Recalling scenes from the best WWII and Bond movies, two of the museum highlights are the original 1942 Battle of Britain and Cold War operations rooms.
Norfolk Tank Museum offers visitors an excitingly, hands-on experience of tanks, military vehicles and equipment. Visitors can climb aboard and even experience the confined inner workings of a tank operating some of the controls. And on the museum’s off-road track, there’s the opportunity of going for a ride in a tracked or wheeled military vehicle.
Come and explore how the curious cogs and machinery of a fully operational watermill work in the grounds of Hardwick Hall.
For centuries, the water wheel at Stainsby Mill has ground flour for the Hall and the estate. The wheel is still turning today, fed by the adjoining Miller's pond. Find out more about this fascinating process at Stainsby Mill.
One of England’s smallest museums, Mundesley Maritime Museum is packed with exhibits, including lifesaving paraphernalia, ships wheels, and navigation lights.
Prints and other information illustrate over 200 years of the town’s maritime history taking in lifeboats, shipwrecks, fishing, railways and the tragic story of the Mundesley Minefield.
Almost 250 million visitors regardless of age or origin have come from all over the planet to see the metal latticework of the Eiffel Tower since its opening in 1889.
Like all towers, it allows us to see and to be seen, with a spectacular ascent, a unique panoramic view of Paris, and a glittering beacon in the skies of the capital of France.
A delightful piece of late Elizabethan playfulness. Built for banquets and converted into a mill in the 19th century.
Captivated by the Coal House series? You’re not alone! The BBC television series, filmed on site, has attracted thousands of new visitors to witness how difficult life was for working families at Blaenavon Ironworks’ Stack Square cottages.
The Royal London has a museum which is located in the crypt of a 19th-century church. It reopened in 2002 after extensive refurbishment and is open to the public free of charge.
The Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum is housed in two towers of Caernarfon Castle. In it you will discover the history of over 300 years of service by Wales’s oldest infantry.
A 10-km (6.5 mile) underground track between Paddington Station and Whitechapel sorting offices, it was served by a fleet of 2-ft gauge driverless electric trains, once transporting 30,000 mailbags containing four million letters and packets every day.
Bembridge and Culver Downs form a dramatic promontory at the east end of the Isle of Wight. The cliffs are part of the same chalk ridge that forms the Needles and cliffs of Tennyson Down in the west. Feel the wind in your hair and admire the views over Sandown Bay and the Solent from this high point perched on top of the cliffs.
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.