William Morris & Citizenship

A FREE Key Stage 2 and 3 Citizenship Workshop Programme for Schools

Presented by the William Morris Society Museum in Hammersmith, London

Funded by The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council

School groups are most welcome to book a FREE visit to the William Morris Society to engage with historical context within their citizenship studies outside of the classroom

This FREE workshop incorporates the Kelmscott House Museum’s socialist memorabilia related to William Morris dating from the Victorian Era for the first time

Morris was a designer in the Arts and Crafts Movement, setting up Morris & Co. on Oxford Street using co-operative style guild workshops and was a prolific writer on workers’ rights and freedom of speech

Children will be encouraged to think about justice, working conditions and how their material environment affects their socio-economic situation through experiential learning, analytical exercises, reflection, and debate, enabling them to build a strong historical grounding

School groups will be split into three rotating teams where they will experience working in a production line, have the opportunity to handle Victorian objects, and develop a campaign which they can continue afterwards, leading to active citizenship

These activities also enable cross-curricular links with KS2 and KS3 History and English to be made

On the right you will find the Teacher Resource Pack, Notes for Students booklet and Media Pack available to download or hard copies can be ordered for the price of postage. The William Morris Society is committed to providing a valuable educational resource for all which can be adapted as necessary throughout the United Kingdom.

Order a resource pack or book a school visit

Notes for Students - download (4.7M PDF document)

Teacher Resource Pack - download (15M PDF document)

Media Pack - download (9M ZIP file)

If you would like to order a hard copy of the resource pack or book a school visit please contact Aleksandra Herbich or Helen Elletson via email: info@williammorrissociety.org.uk or telephone:  +44 (0)208 741 3735

About the Workshop

The workshop has been developed through the Learning Links programme with a Citizenship teacher and also incorporates the British Library’s Campaign! Make an Impact initiative. We are currently developing a larger Campaign! project with the Marx Memorial Library. If any teachers are interested in getting their class involved please contact us and find out more at the British Library Campaign Page