Outreach Programmes

In 2005/6 it was decided that we should best divide our outreach efforts into three areas – Schools, Gifted & Talented, and Further Education (FE). In two of these three programmes (informed by some knowledge of what our target institutions taught) we delivered classes in schools and colleges and brought students to the campus at Docklands. (The Gifted & Talented programme was delivered with the help of Villiers Park Educational Trust). We also set up events with our partners in museums and archives. A central part of the project has involved taking the students out of their normal environments, giving them a chance to visit historical and cultural sites they may not otherwise visit, and acting as inspiration to their thinking about history as a subject and as a social activity.

In both the Schools programme and the FE programme, we decided to be reflexive in our discussions with teaching staff in schools and colleges. If they felt there was a gap in the curriculum – we could fill it; if colleagues working in schools and colleges wanted a class covered we would agree to cover it, even if it meant starting teaching at 8.30am or agreeing a programme for 13 year old students that might last a morning and which a teacher may be absent. This approach was only possible because a relationship of trust had been established with teachers and lecturers.

If our emphasis changed in response to the needs of colleagues working in colleges and schools the central idea remained to build relationships that would enhance and enrich the teaching and learning experience for students by putting an academic at the disposal of teachers and lecturers. A single example of how this type of work was a recent class given at Barking Abbey where a formal ‘university style’ lecture on Chartism was given to Years 12 and 13 and where at least four teaching staff attended as a way of updating their knowledge of the historiography of nineteenth century radical politics. Indeed it was explicitly requested that there was no effort made to conform to the curriculum, nor to employ a more accessible pedagogy as the staff specifically wanted to give their students an ‘authentic’ university experience.

Two schools in particular, Barking Abbey and Brampton Manor, have been eager to develop this approach and have requested additional events to be delivered this year. We also delivered an innovative two part event with Bishop Challoner School focussing on the historical / geographical significance of Cable Street, a road which runs next to the school. In collaboration with Eastside Community Heritage, this event enabled 30 year 9 students to make a film about a particular aspect of the Battle of Cable Street.

The principal aim of the FE project, entitled "History, humanities, culture: highways from sixth form to university", was to introduce students to a broader conception of the study of history, both as a method of cultural criticism and as an academic subject to be studied. We have done this by delivering university-style lectures in historical topics which complement their studies; however the focus of the lectures has been to raise awareness of the tangential and non-compartmentalised nature of studying history. In giving the students an introduction to university-level study, the project has also given them some preparation for the transition from further to higher education.

Largely as a result of efforts to connect sectors and promote strategies for progression to HE, Peter Claus was asked in November 2005 to become a member of a NAGTY (National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth) ‘History think tank’ at the University of Warwick. He has also been recruited by the Higher Education Academy (Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology) to co-organise the ‘HE in FE’ ‘think tank’.