Journeys to Nottingham innovates by incorporating the journey from school to site within the resource. Schools are advised to use the city’s new ‘Supertram’ to take them to the start of their interactive walk.

Journeys to Nottingham explores the local area with the use of four main themes:

1. Transport links – how they have changed and why

2. Industry – how they have influenced people’s lives and the infrastructure of The City

3. The built environment – housing and development

4. Local people – how they used to live and how we live now

To explore these themes the pupils will take on the role of ‘researchers’. Their end product is to be a leaflet aimed at different sectors that may wish to visit Nottingham with Nottingham Castle as a central theme. This provides them with a target ‘audience’ for their leaflet from the outset. All pupils should be provided with a reporter’s notebook in which to take down the information that they collect along the way. To carry on the theme of a leaflet production company the group of researchers must also have and ‘Editor in Charge’ – The teacher!

The activities are designed to stimulate and inspire in a fun and interactive manner whilst also linking well into the National Curriculum across the four identified themes. Activities are interchangeable to a certain extent but the layout below is considered to be the most suitable.

This project introduces the pupils to an enquiry-based approach to a local study. Comparing their lives today to the lives of local people since Victorian times encourages imagination and enhances deductive reasoning. Using Nottingham Castle as a study focus provides a chance to develop fieldwork and research skills.