OUR MISSION
Every child deserves to feel connected to the place they call home.
Local History Hub brings teachers, schools, heritage organisations and communities together to make high-quality local history easier to teach, more connected and more sustainable.
What Matters To Us
Local history is about more than the past. It is about helping children understand the places they live, recognise the contributions of different communities and explore their own connections to those places.
We believe this work should be collaborative, inclusive and grounded in the realities of school life.
These principles shape everything we do.
Explore Our Values
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Teachers understand their pupils, their curriculum and the practical challenges of school life.
That is why Local History Hub is teacher-led. We believe educators should have a central role in shaping the opportunities, partnerships and professional development available to them.
Our hubs are designed to be flexible and responsive, recognising that schools have different priorities, capacities and circumstances.
We don't believe in adding unnecessary workload or asking teachers to take on another initiative for its own sake.
Instead, we aim to support manageable, purposeful improvements that build on what schools already do.
This principle also guides our developing Local History Charter. Rather than imposing a new framework on schools, we are inviting teachers to help shape a voluntary commitment to local history, place, identity and belonging.
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Children are at the heart of our mission, and we believe their perspectives should help shape our understanding of what meaningful local history education looks like.
We want children to have opportunities to explore the histories of their communities, ask questions about the places around them and consider how different people experience belonging.
But we also recognise that children do not all experience their communities in the same way.
Our developing national Pupil Voice Survey explores young people's experiences of place, local history and belonging.
By listening to pupils, alongside teachers and heritage partners, we hope to develop a more informed understanding of the opportunities available to them, the barriers they encounter and what they value.
Pupil voice is not simply a way of demonstrating impact. It is an important part of deciding what we do next.
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No single school, museum, archive or community organisation holds all the knowledge or resources needed to bring local history to life.
We believe the strongest opportunities emerge when people share expertise, learn from one another and work towards common goals.
Teachers bring curriculum knowledge and an understanding of their pupils. Heritage organisations contribute specialist expertise, collections and connections to place. Communities offer experiences, perspectives and stories that can enrich children's learning.
Local History Hub brings these strengths together.
We encourage open, generous collaboration, recognising that meaningful partnerships depend on trust, mutual respect and a willingness to listen.
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Every child deserves meaningful opportunities to understand the history of the place they call home.
We recognise that access to heritage experiences, local knowledge and cultural opportunities is not equal.
We are particularly interested in how locally rooted learning might support pupils experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, while recognising that belonging is complex and experienced differently by different children.
Local history should reflect the diversity of people and experiences that have shaped our communities, including stories that have sometimes been overlooked or excluded.
We encourage thoughtful, inclusive historical enquiry that helps pupils explore different perspectives, ask questions and develop a deeper understanding of place.
Our aim is not to prescribe how children should feel about where they live, but to give them the knowledge and opportunities to develop their own understanding.
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We believe sustainable change depends on relationships, not isolated activities.
A single workshop, resource or heritage visit can be valuable. But its longer-term contribution is strengthened when teachers and heritage partners have opportunities to continue working together.
Our hubs meet regularly throughout the academic year, creating space for members to share ideas, develop trust and explore what might be possible.
We encourage a gradual approach, beginning with networking and Local History Day before moving towards collaborative curriculum development.
This reflects our commitment to realistic, manageable change that can become part of everyday school life.
We are interested not simply in what happens once, but in what continues to happen because people have been brought together.
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We are ambitious about the potential of local history, but recognise the importance of testing our assumptions and learning from experience.
We believe local history can contribute to children's understanding of place, sense of belonging and engagement with learning. We do not assume that these outcomes happen automatically.
During 2026–28, we are working with teachers, pupils and partners to test and refine our developing Theory of Change.
Through pupil voice, teacher feedback, participation data and examples of curriculum development, we aim to build a clearer understanding of what works, for whom and under what circumstances.
We want to celebrate progress, acknowledge challenges and adapt our approach as evidence develops.
Being grassroots means listening, learning and remaining open to change.
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Local history is not small history.
The histories of our towns, villages, cities and neighbourhoods are connected to much wider regional, national and global stories.
Migration, trade, industry, empire, conflict, social change and cultural exchange have all shaped the places in which we live. Exploring these connections can help children understand how events and developments beyond their immediate surroundings have influenced their own communities.
Equally, local stories can provide a meaningful starting point for understanding broader historical events and processes, connecting the familiar with the unfamiliar.
We believe local history should not be treated as separate from the wider curriculum or reduced to a collection of interesting facts about nearby places.
Instead, it offers opportunities for rigorous historical enquiry, helping pupils explore connections between local, regional, national and global histories.
Our ambition is to support teachers in making these connections purposeful, accessible and relevant to their pupils.
Our Values in Action
Shaping something together
Together, we can help make local history more accessible, meaningful and sustainable.