The deadline for school entries is October 19 2007.

Leading figures from the media and education have pledged their support for a national initiative organised by Understanding Slavery and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

BBC History Magazine’s History Teacher of the Year, Daniel Burton, and award winning journalist and broadcaster George Alagiah have announced their participation in ‘The Big Conversation 2007’ - a national competition and debate which encourages students to research and discuss the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade.

“I'm backing ‘The Big Conversation 2007’ because I think it will provide a real, ‘hands on’ opportunity for students to study the slave trade,” said George Alagiah.

“I think they may well come up with new ways of looking at some of the key issues - should there be compensation, should there be an official apology are just two examples. I look forward to judging the entries and discussing them with the young people during the national panel debate.”

The Understanding Slavery website is rich in primary material and encourages a variety of teaching approaches.

The Big Conversation 2007 supports the study of the transatlantic slave trade in the KS3 citizenship and history curriculums.

It links with the addition of the subject to the KS3 history programme of study from 2008 and the new Citizenship strand ‘Identity and Diversity - Living Together in the UK’. The competition is supported by The Citizen Resource - a free teaching pack available free to all schools in England and an interactive student website which places the historical issues in a modern day context.

The competition requires young people to work together in their schools to develop journalistic projects in response to one of the following questions:

· How and why should Britons commemorate the transatlantic slave trade?

· How can Britons learn from this history and celebrate a modern society with a diverse heritage?

Entries will take the form of a newspaper article, audio interview/narrative or short film. The competition will be judged in the autumn by a range of professionals and personalities from education, the arts, literature and the media including Daniel Burton and George Alagiah.

Students from the winning schools will have the opportunity to discuss their final work, ideas and views in ‘The Big Conversation 2007’ debate on December 6 with representatives from education, culture and the media.

The winning schools will also be offered a one-day workshop with a journalist or documentary film-maker, as well as receiving £500 towards the cost of visiting a museum.

The Citizen Resource – a printed pack for teachers and a corresponding website for students has been designed as a lasting teaching tool. The resources are organised under four themes – Activism, Heritage, Identity and Routes and contain lesson plans and activities, image cards of artefacts and archive material as well as biographies of historical individuals affected by the legacies of the slave trade.

Teachers in England can request the free resource by e-mailing enquiries@thebigconversation2007.com.

Students can find the website at www.understandingslavery.com/citizen