As with images, there is a wide variety of documentation available to use with children. However, they may not be accessible to your pupils for a range of different reasons; they may be written in a foreign language or script, they may be written in a very different style with different spellings, or they may be written on material that make them difficult to decipher. I would always suggest you show children the original form initially so you do not create misconceptions about what writing in the past looked like or what implements and materials were used. Once the children have examined the originals you could then introduce a transcript. As much of the National Curriculum is pre 1066 then the availability of documents will be limited so when you are choosing your local History and post 1066 themes it would be worth bearing in mind whether you could include some more recent documents like diaries, letters, the census, trade directories, OS maps, newspapers, school records and accounts of court proceedings.

The sources mentioned below are among the most useful as they are all readily available, are relatively easy to read and some are printed. These documents cover several years and a wide range of the population to allow comparisons and trends to be analysed. They also cover a wide range of circumstances e.g., rich and poor, old and young, city and countryside etc and are about ordinary people and places that children can relate to and can show different perspectives of the same event (also bias and prejudice).

We always need to remember that particularly further back in history, it is mainly the higher echelons of society who were literate and therefore produced the documents that have survived. It is also worth bearing in mind that the documents which have survived by no means present a full picture – sometimes it is sheer luck that something has survived in a form that we are able to interpret. More recently official documents have been kept which allow us to find out more about ordinary people. All these sources can be used individually or in combinations.

Your local library, record office and/or museum will all have lots of these documents available to you at the cost of photocopying. Local history groups are also great sources of documents, photographs and information.

Maps

There are a whole variety of maps but the most useful and easy to read are Ordnance Survey maps. They can be used to illustrate:

• Changing settlement patterns and place names over time
• How people have altered the landscape e.g., mining
• Growth and depopulation of villages
• Evidence of disappearing villages
• Developments in communications and transport
• Existence and position of buildings e.g., churches, schools
• Changes in physical features e.g., rivers
• Agriculture and land use

Census returns

These were completed every 10 years from 1841 onwards but only the documents from 100 years are available to examine – the 1921 returns have recently been made available.

• Show rise and fall in population, local and national trends can be compared
• Compare number of men and women, changes in occupation, changes in life expectancy
• Demonstrate aspects of living standards e.g., the number of people in a house compared to the number of bedrooms
• Migration
• Family structures
• Occupation trends in different or the same areas
• Changes in individual circumstances – you can try to follow a person through the census returns for subsequent years (at 10 yr intervals)
• Migration of particular families
• Family history
• Inmates of goals, hospitals, workhouses etc
• Housing conditions
• compare rich and poor households
• Alongside OS maps to find locations of different houses

Trade Directories

These are records of every business in a road and are generally seen as the equivalent to the telephone directory of later years. They give us information about

• Changes in trade and industry
• Snapshot picture of the town at a particular time
• History of a community
• Tracing developments e.g., new churches, schools etc

Parish Registers

These record the christenings, marriages, and burials in a church parish. Bearing in mind that the majority of the population went to church these can be used with census returns to give information about:

• Population studies
• Family history
• Literacy (from signatures in marriage registers)
• Early migration
• Occupations

Newspapers

These are easily available in local libraries and archive offices, though you may need to use a microfiche system to view them. As they are printed and not handwritten, they are easier to access for children, though some of the language used may be rather old-fashioned. They are particularly useful for:

• Study of a particular event e.g., strike, election, coming of a railway etc
• Report local events and occasions e.g., markets and fairs
• Births, deaths, marriages, obituaries
• Advertisements for goods, lands, and sales
• Reports from local sanitary boards and education boards
• Accounts from court proceedings (quarter and petty sessions), crime and punishment
• Social and cultural gatherings e.g., dances and plays
• Annual reports of associations, churches and chapels
• Information on agriculture, trades and industries
• Show local feeling on particular topics

School Records

Until relatively recently the Head teacher was required by law to record a weekly report of what had happened during the previous week in their school. This means there may be information about visitors, epidemics, or even evacuation arrangements during the war. They are especially useful for:

• General information about the life of the school, staff etc
• Community life e.g. children missing at harvest time
• Changes in the school
• Comparison of then and now e.g. subjects studied – needlework for girls 

In addition to these you may wish to use more personal documentation such as letters or diaries. If you contact your local archive office and explain what your focus is, it can be amazing what gems the staff will hunt out for you. As with the other sources it is always worth observing and exploring these with your children then using them in different ways. For example, you could ask the children to produce a chart to compare the similarities of school life then and now from a school timetable or draw a picture from a description. Transforming the information they have gleaned from a source into another form really helps the children to demonstrate their understanding of it.