National Holocaust Centre and Museum Outreach Workshops

Our unique outreach learning programmes for Key Stage Two are based on our award-winning exhibition and provides students with an immersive learning experience in which they will experience light bulb moments. This 2.5hr workshop is delivered to your students in their classrooms or online. The Journey learning programme teaches your students about a young boy in 1930s Berlin named Leo. By the end of the programme students will understand how Jewish people were persecuted in Germany as well as why ordinary people might become refugees. Your pupils will also examine complex themes such as the influence of propaganda; identity and antisemitism. The enquiry-based learning and deductive activities focus on the development of critical thinking skills.

Curriculum links: History, RE, World War II, Literacy, Citizenship and PSHE.

Aims

In examining the effects of isolation and persecution, the programme will enable your pupils to develop their understanding of the importance of respecting people who are different from themselves. They will also learn to think critically and independently.

The programme will encourage pupils to:

• Explore the nature of choices. How do you find out what is important to someone? What gives us our identity? What does it mean to belong?
• Challenge ideas and perspectives. How do we know if something is true? What questions should we ask? Who decides how people are seen? What is stereotyping? Why is it important to think critically and independently?
• Engage with ideas, viewpoints and people different from themselves. What is a refugee? Why might people have to leave their home country? How might it feel to leave behind everything that you know?

Objectives

Pupils will be able to do the following by the end of the programme:

• Describe the experiences of some Jewish children growing up under the Nazi regime.
• Identify some aspects of the impact of the Nazi regime on the lives of Jewish families and others in the period 1933-38.
• Explain and analyse some of the choices made by individuals which affected these children, and the consequences of those choices.
• Understand the importance of respecting the identities of others.
• Examine their role, and future role, as citizens with responsibilities to others in creating safe, open and accepting communities.

KS3/4: Working with your school, our educator will ensure that your students get to explore a number of themes surrounding the Holocaust. Based on our exhibition and workshops at the museum, and through artefacts and testimony from survivors, your students will find out what it means to be Jewish, delve into the 2000 year history of anti-Jewish racism that surrounds the Holocaust and analyse where the responsibility for what happened lies. Depending on the year group and your needs, we can also investigate what led up to such an unprecedented period of time by investigating life in Germany in the 1930s. Workshops can be delivered in a number of different time slots to suit your school. For more information, please go to our webpage: https://www.holocaust.org.uk/secondary-post16-learning

Our workshops raise big questions, and allow a safe and supported space for students to explore these questions without judgement, navigated by our expert educators. These are questions that are important not just for achieving curriculum objectives, but for preparing young people for their future lives in challenging times. 

Primary students will have the opportunity to reflect on questions such as:

• What is it like to be seen as ‘different’?
• What courage does it take to stand up for our friends against bullying?
• What are the consequences of prejudice and discrimination?
• Why do people become refugees?

Secondary students will have the opportunity to explore questions such as:

• How and why could the Holocaust happen?
• How can we judge individual responsibility and choices during the Holocaust?
• How can conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’ lead to genocide?
• Why is listening to and preserving testimonies important?

Finally, if you’ve ever felt uncertain about how to approach teaching this challenging topic, a visit from one of our educators will help to support your own development as a practitioner in how to pitch age-appropriate activities and questions. 

We can visit all regions of the U.K., five days a week! (Except Northern Ireland)

We have the LOtC Quality Badge.

All of our educators are fully DBS checked.

Primary workshops are aimed at a class size of up to 34 students. Secondary workshops can be delivered to individual classes or to whole year groups in an assembly-style setting.

Pre-visit resources such as pre-visit videos are accessible via our website.

For primary workshops, the educator will bring with them a PowerPoint presentation and artefacts for the students to explore. Printable worksheets are sent to the school digitally in advance.

For secondary workshops, the educator will bring with them a PowerPoint presentation, but it is useful for students to have access to mini-whiteboards and board pens. 

Follow-up resources include access to our digital Forever Project archive. Any school who is not able to meet a survivor onsite in person is given access to an on-line talk at a later date. 

No restrictions

Expenses as follows:
Under 50 miles from the museum – £75 per educator
Over 50 miles from the museum – £220 per educator
London – £250 per educator

Five days a week.

Contact us for further information.

Owston Park Academy feedback:

“The workshop delivered was outstanding from start to finish! Nicola’s warm, friendly approach (along with her ability to learn the children’s names before first break) meant that she was able to build relationships with the children quickly and encourage them to think deeper, share their ideas openly and truly get the most out of the sessions.

“Nicola is a true expert in the subject and used this to captivate the children with historical facts and accounts from survivors she knew from memory. Her use of artefacts, pictures and video accounts was pitched perfectly with the Year 6 History curriculum, developing the children’s ability to analyse and interpret sources critically.

“The quality of resources used is fantastic and it is clear that care and attention to detail has gone into everything shared with the children.

“I would, and already have recommended this workshop online and to colleagues in other schools. This workshop was one of the best I have ever taken part in! …I cannot think of any reason a school would not invite you in to work with their children.”