Abstract

Between 2010 and 2013 the University of Sussex hosted the ESRC-funded project entitled ‘The Living Standards of Working Households in Britain, 1904-1960’ (RES-062-23-2054). The aim of the project was to transcribe and analyse large-scale government surveys administered in the first half of the twentieth century. The aim of the knowledge transfer component of the project was to facilitate the teaching of new research on British living standards in UK schools. The knowledge transfer component of the project was undertaken in partnership with The National Archives. The National Archives had experience of running a number of ‘teacher scholar’ programmes. A ‘teacher scholar’ could be defined as a teacher who becomes expert on a particular topic through academic activities, such as attending lectures, reading, and examining primary ‘evidence’ (such as documents, statistics, landmarks etc), and then uses this knowledge to inform the lessons they write. The lessons developed by the teacher scholars would be shared with other teachers who did not attend the programme by being made available to download online. The Sussex project team worked with Andrew Payne, Head of Education and Outreach at TNA, and Ben Walsh, teacher, author and senior GCSE history examiner, to develop a teacher-scholar programme on the subject of modern British living standards.
Dr Samantha Shave was responsible for liaison between the TNA and Sussex teams and wrote this report about the Programme at the end of the project in 2013, in order to capture the development of the programme, what happened on the programme and how it worked. This report hopes to serve as inspiration for academics in the humanities and social sciences who are planning or embarking on knowledge transfer and impact projects.