I present an overview of the opportunities available to schools and teachers using robotic telescopes and their data archives.

Robotic, remote telescopes provide the opportunity to inspire students who can utilise them to study a range of astronomical objects. They can take their own images and process these to make colour images or perform scientific studies on exoplanet transits, create colour-magnitude diagrams of open clusters, generate light-curves of variable stars. On occasion, they can provide data which is fed back to science missions such as ESA’s Gaia mission. I will also provide examples of the cross-curricular nature of these activities, notably chemistry (through) spectroscopy as well as IT and maths skills.

The Faulkes Telescope (FT) Project and National Schools’ Observatory (NSO) provide background material, instructions and packaged data to allow students to understand how astronomical research works as well as allowing them to take their own images for analysis and collaboration with other schools.

The OpenScience Observatories (OSO) offer a complementary real-time remote observing experience on the PIRATE Facility, and its new COAST Facility will continue the successful schools programme of the Bradford Robotic Telescope. FT, NSO and OSO expect to coordinate their offerings for schools more closely in future.