Learning questions

Michael is a typically curious child who happens upon a time capsule containing 1950s objects belonging to an unidentified individual involved in an unsolved crime. When Michael has an accident and ends up in hospital, he passes the capsule with its clues to his teacher and it becomes a school project.

Mixing fiction with a real-life crime has paid off for this partnership comprising a museum service, teachers and a volunteer-run museum in the east of England. Michael’s Mystery, created for 7-11 year olds, embodies the best of museums and schools working together.

It builds pupils’ thinking, enquiry, creativity and evaluation skills, and teamwork. From classroom teaching – with the time capsule (actually a loan box) – through to finding clues during a visit to the museum, it is modern teaching in action.

The primary school curriculum currently under a government review is widely expected to advocate a more flexible approach to teaching. Like the review of the secondary curriculum before it – completed in 2007 – it pushes a less prescriptive agenda for teachers and allows more choice in the classroom.

More specifically, says Helen Easter, a history teacher at Beths Grammar School in Bexley, for the 11-14 year olds, the new focus of the secondary curriculum has “radically changed the way we teach”. The main aim previously was to develop pupils’ evaluation and interpretation skills.

While retaining this, there is now more emphasis on context through themes. So at Beths school, the topics of the Empire or the Power of Monarchs are threaded through the first three years of the secondary history curriculum.

Easter is enthusiastic about the changes at the secondary level, but there is caution around changes to the primary curriculum. John Stevenson, the director of the Group for Education in Museums, is worried that much of what is in the review will not be compulsory. “To make the changes really effective it needs to be mandatory, otherwise people will carry on in their old ways.”

Stevenson, who is also the chairman of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (LOTC), says: “Learning outside the classroom should be part of continuous education, not a one-off treat.”

Making connections

Although Stevenson testifies to real improvement over the past decade, he says the once-a-week visit by a local school is not enough. At least 50 per cent needs to be outside the classroom, he says.

Of course, this doesn’t only apply just to museums – the local environment, other heritage bodies, religious organisations are also vital learning spaces. At Beths, history teacher Easter says she makes six visits a year on learning trips, which can range from whole year groups to two students at any one time.

Political support?

The Office for Standards in Education’s (Ofsted) 2008 report, Learning Outside of the Classroom: How Far Should You Go?, plainly states, “when planned and implemented well, learning outside the classroom contributed significantly to raising standards and improving pupils’ personal, social and emotional development”.

The LOTC council successfully tabled an early-day motion at the House of Commons in November last year. While it recognised the Ofsted conclusion that learning outside the classroom raises standards, it went on to warn that, despite all the good work, it is not yet embedded in all schools.

It called on the government to find a way of making this a reality for all young people, including those who need financial support. The importance the government places on this will depend on the number of MPs who sign the early-day motion.

Michael’s Mystery is a collaboration between Ipswich Transport Museum, Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service and three local teachers from different schools. Clive Stacey, the Colchester and Ipswich education officer, says without the teachers the outcome may not have been as successful:

“We had our minds open, but when we got the teachers on board, they took it in a completely different direction, somewhere we hadn’t thought about.” The teachers pushed the cross-curricular agenda, knowing that having context threading through the experience from classroom to museum would sustain the attention of the pupils.

Before the volunteer-run Ipswich Transport Museum (which is open from April to November) teamed up with Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service for the pilot of the learning programme last summer, it provided a basic tour around its museum for any school that decided to get in touch.

Now, after £8,000 of Renaissance hub funding to develop a sustainable offer to schools, it runs an in-house learning provision (though reliant on teacher participation) and expects to welcome an additional 20 school groups by 2011.

It is now common practice for museums to create teacher forums to inform local teachers about objects and give training in the use of the handling collections. These meetings are also an opportunity for museum educators to get feedback from teachers about what the museum offers and to learn about their needs and future areas of classroom study.

Curriculum creep

But how straightforward is it for museums to influence what schools study or focus on with a year group? Not very, says Lucie Parkes, a secondary schools officer at the Museum of London. Last autumn, the museum created schools study days to be hosted in its new learning centre.

But Parkes says all choices were reactive, based on consultation with teachers. There is also the need to be relevant to all schools to encourage schools’ participation and that means following the national curriculum.

Parkes says it would be good to use more of the museum’s collection in its schools programmes, but to influence topics would be unmanageable. “It is unrealistic. It is not a route we have many schools asking for,” she says. “We have such a diverse and well-used education programme that I haven’t found it an issue.”

Introducing pupils to museums as a cultural resource is another powerful outcome of the school visit. With A-level students, the Museum of London takes it a step further by introducing the students to the museum as a place to work.

Giving the students a sense of what museums do, they are offered object-handling sessions and career guidance that includes where the objects were found, how they came to be in the collection and how they are cared for.

Paul Mainds, the chief executive of the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, says as soon as children are introduced to museums through a school visit, it is like enfranchising the population.

“They are getting used to the idea of using the culture on their doorstep – they are crossing a threshold,” says Mainds, who set up the education department at the River and Rowing Museum ten years ago. He is also a governor of the first school in the UK to use museum learning as a dedicated programme across the curriculum.

The Langley Academy, near Slough, which officially opened in November last year, makes links between objects and ways of thinking about objects across all subjects.

School museum club

With 500 objects on display and in use at any one time, it has partnered national and local museums that offer loans and guidance. The school’s museum advisory board includes representatives from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading.

A museum learning club, run by pupils, will give them the opportunity to choose what is displayed in the cases around the school, including their own work. The pupils will follow the curatorial process to mount an exhibition.

The museum club meets on a Tuesday afternoon as part of an extended school day. There are currently 25 members debating issues about museums and what they display. With a multicultural and multilingual school, conversations around language and identity are heard.

For Mainds, this is sufficient testimony that given the right conditions these pupils have chosen to consider artefacts and exhibitions rather than spend their Tuesday afternoon on another activity.

Learning Curve: Building Better Relations with Schools and Teachers, 26 February, London. For further information or to book a place, click here