The Highlands of Scotland are beautiful and their history fascinating. They are also big, geographically speaking: roughly the same size as Wales or Belgium.
The question is, how do you deliver a service to all schools fairly across the area? It’s relatively easy to support the activities of schools which are located close to one of our four archive centres. Either they come to us to look at archive material or else we go to them, taking copies of archive material with us. The photo you see here is of Cradlehall Primary p5/6 class who recently came to the Highland Archive Centre to study documents relating to the 1715 Jacobite Rising. This year marks the 300th anniversary of the Rising, and involved a siege of Inverness Castle by the Jacobites in November of that year.
But what about schools further afield which can’t visit one of the archive centres because of the time it would take and the cost of travel? Well, we are currently exploring the use of the Internet to make our Highland resources available to schools both in the Highlands and elsewhere throughout the world. We have produced our first online resource on the subject of the Great War using specifically Highland archive material. The online pack deals with how people kept in touch during the war. We have amazing archive material in our archive centres which relates to WW1 (and many other subjects). We have selected material for the resource from our four archive centres to ensure that the whole of the region is represented. We have received our first piece of feedback from a teacher in the Highlands “My class have been exploring letters from the front line this week and have really enjoyed it. I think it’s an excellent idea to have such materials available for schools unable to visit the centre”. We are waiting for further comments and suggestions, so, if you are a teacher or just interested, please do have a look by following the link. I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback.
The next couple of online resource packs will be on the topics of “The Jacobites” and “The Highland Clearances”. Others will follow. If you are a teacher in search of archive material relating to the Highlands, please do get in touch. I would like to hear from you.
Janet Baker, Education & Outreach Co-ordinator
