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Research conducted by the Local Heritage Initiative (LHI) in 2004 revealed teachers found lesson plans too prescriptive. A need was identified for ideas and activities that could be integrated into a teacher’s own classroom requirements. Online resources provided lesson plans for key stage 3 (KS3) subjects, but educational resources that generated ideas about teaching local heritage were scarce.

In order to collect feedback from teachers, LHI staff joined discussion forums on the Times Educational Supplement (TAS) website in September and October 2004. The result of this consultation showed that many teachers would prefer to use curriculum linked ideas sheets to teach local heritage rather than lesson plans.

The activity sheets were produced for geography, history and citizenship subject areas. Each sheet contains a series of ideas linked to the National Curriculum and the QCA/DfES schemes of work.

The sheets were designed to encourage teachers to include local heritage in their lesson plans. They enabled teachers to fulfill the demands of the National Curriculum while at the same time allowing them to create tailor made lesson plans based on their specific needs.

The activity sheets allowed teachers to interest and inspire young people to find out more about local heritage and community projects. To ensure that this material continued to provide a useful local heritage resource for teachers, the resources was offered to other organisations.

All the activity sheets were updated at the beginning of 2006, with intention that activity sheets could be used as a stand-alone resource after the closure of the Local Heritage Initiative programme.