We are delighted to announce the launch of our new Teaching Migration History Toolkit, co-produced with the British Library. 

What is the toolkit?

Developed with the help of teachers, this toolkit combines practical tips from the Migration Museum’s expert learning team with primary source examples from the British Library to offer a practical guide to teaching about migration in your classroom.

Use this toolkit to discover how you can use historical sources to teach migration history sensitively and with confidence, how personal stories can bring the subject to life, and how to navigate a subject that is heavily politicised by society.

Who is it for?

While this toolkit has been primarily designed for and with teachers, we hope that it’s a useful resource for anyone who wants to engage meaningfully with this subject.

We hope that it will inspire greater exploration of migration themes in classrooms, learning settings and beyond across the UK.

How was it created?

This toolkit is the result of a two-year critical friendship between the Migration Migration and the British Library’s learning teams. During this time we realised that it isn’t enough to just create migration history resources; we need to equip teachers with the skills to have conversations about migration and to navigate this complex topic.

How to use the toolkit

There are countless positive and uplifting stories of migrants’ contributions to Britain, which we encourage you to use in your classroom. But we’ve focused here on the most challenging aspects of teaching migration, identifying six topics, in response to teachers’ feedback:

• Championing lived experience
• Facilitating difficult conversations
• Navigating the politics
• Language and terminology
• Dealing with racist language and imagery
• Challenging myths, narratives and stereotypes

Each section uses a combination of primary source materials and top tips from the Migration Museum to offer guidance on how to deal with these challenging aspects of teaching migration history.

Download and explore the toolkit and related resources

To accompany the toolkit, we’ve also produced a terminology resource, defining some of the key language you will be using when teaching about migration and related topics, with explanations and guidance as to why certain terms are preferable over others.

The British Library have also collated a range of accompanying resources on Padlet, including animations, timelines and more primary sources.

Click here to download the toolkit

Click here to download the terminology resource

Click here to explore a full range of resources in Padlet

Cover design by Shania Janine Saldi. Includes images with the following copyright credits:

-Marc Schatzberger’s postcard from the Kindertransport, 1939. Held by the Holocaust Centre North. Courtesy of the Schatzberger family.
-Tailor’s sweat shop in ‘The Alien in England: The Immigrant Problem’, Illustrated London News, 1904. Held by Mary Evans. Shelfmark: 10219371 © Illustrated London News Ltd. / Mary Evans
-African Steamship Company advertisement, 1892. Held by the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With permission of ‘Documenting the American South’, UNC-Chapel Hill Library.
-The Asiatic in England by Joseph Salter, 1873. Held by the British Library. Shelfmark: 4192.bb.43. Public domain.