Award winning week for The National Archives

14 Sep 2015 12:56 PM

Our education visits and an online transcription project with the National Maritime Museum have both won awards last week.

Learning outside the classroom

We have been awarded a Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge for the fourth time. The LOtC Quality Badge was launched in 2009 as part of the Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto, a national initiative to ensure young people are given more opportunities to have these experiences as part of the curriculum.

Head of Outreach and Education at The National Archives, Andrew Payne, said, ‘We’re thrilled to get official recognition for our efforts. Being awarded the LOtC Quality Badge for the fourth time is an acknowledgement of the hard work our staff put in to ensure that students visiting The National Archives have a high quality learning experience which adds value to their education.’

The National Archives Education team works with 12,000 students (from key stage 1 to key stage 5) each year either at The National Archives or by webinars and remote teaching. Find out more about our Education programme.

Volunteers help make First World War records searchable online

Our 1915 Crew List online transcription project has also been recognised in the Museum Volunteer Awards, receiving a Highly Commended Award in the Bringing Innovation category.

Volunteers transcribed 39,000 voyages, including the names and personal details of 750,000 seamen, using electronic copies of the documents. This made the details from all surviving First World War merchant navy crew lists for 1915 searchable online for the first time.

The four year project was started by The National Maritime Museum and The National Archives in 2012, for the First World War centenary. It attracted the help of over 400 online volunteers from as far afield as Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Canada.