John Hamshere is the director of the Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust
YES: If a museum wants to attract a significant number of school visits then it has to do this. Promotional material has to make it obvious that this is the case and make it easy for harassed teachers to see the value of a visit.
The Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust has done this since the inception of the trust in 1994. And unlike some museums in the 1990s it did not experience a fall in numbers. The living history sessions and events are related to the collections or buildings and play to our strengths.
Being a trust and therefore obliged to charge for our services by our funding agreements with the city council, there is also a commercial pressure. The education programme has to make a surplus, or at worst break even.
The products have to perform in the marketplace. Self-guided visits have been in decline since the early 1990s and the tailored sessions that have replaced them have created growth compared with the self-guided and traditional worksheet approach.
However, it is within the capacity of the team for sessions to be created irrespective of the national curriculum in response to the individual needs of a teacher. We have to be customer-led when income generation and performance indicators are paramount, but we also regularly secure grants to create different and innovative learning activities not driven by such mundane motives.
Gareth Griffiths is the director of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol
NO: As the national curriculum neglects almost the entire colonial and post-colonial past, I am opposed to an educational programme exclusively constructed around the curriculum.
It represents less than the minimum for an adequate education and fails to provide a basis for an understanding of modern Britain and the contemporary world, however defined. A simple example is the commemoration to mark the abolition of the slave trade in 2007. This history is outside the present curriculum. The demand for resources from the formal and informal learning sector to explore this past and its legacy are tremendous, despite its exclusion.
In addition, there is the failure of ambition that the curriculum represents for our children. I am concerned about the consequences for all those involved in learning.
The prospect of working in a field defined by the national curriculum makes me fear for the ambition of colleagues working in the sector, their future creativity and stimulation, as well as their ability to respond to local and national needs beyond those defined in Westminster.
The opportunities for learning within museum collections extends further than the curriculum; every effort should be made to explore beyond the comfort zone afforded by the national curriculum to provide the broadest opportunities for learning.
YES: If a museum wants to attract a significant number of school visits then it has to do this. Promotional material has to make it obvious that this is the case and make it easy for harassed teachers to see the value of a visit.
The Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust has done this since the inception of the trust in 1994. And unlike some museums in the 1990s it did not experience a fall in numbers. The living history sessions and events are related to the collections or buildings and play to our strengths.
Being a trust and therefore obliged to charge for our services by our funding agreements with the city council, there is also a commercial pressure. The education programme has to make a surplus, or at worst break even.
The products have to perform in the marketplace. Self-guided visits have been in decline since the early 1990s and the tailored sessions that have replaced them have created growth compared with the self-guided and traditional worksheet approach.
However, it is within the capacity of the team for sessions to be created irrespective of the national curriculum in response to the individual needs of a teacher. We have to be customer-led when income generation and performance indicators are paramount, but we also regularly secure grants to create different and innovative learning activities not driven by such mundane motives.
Gareth Griffiths is the director of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol
NO: As the national curriculum neglects almost the entire colonial and post-colonial past, I am opposed to an educational programme exclusively constructed around the curriculum.
It represents less than the minimum for an adequate education and fails to provide a basis for an understanding of modern Britain and the contemporary world, however defined. A simple example is the commemoration to mark the abolition of the slave trade in 2007. This history is outside the present curriculum. The demand for resources from the formal and informal learning sector to explore this past and its legacy are tremendous, despite its exclusion.
In addition, there is the failure of ambition that the curriculum represents for our children. I am concerned about the consequences for all those involved in learning.
The prospect of working in a field defined by the national curriculum makes me fear for the ambition of colleagues working in the sector, their future creativity and stimulation, as well as their ability to respond to local and national needs beyond those defined in Westminster.
The opportunities for learning within museum collections extends further than the curriculum; every effort should be made to explore beyond the comfort zone afforded by the national curriculum to provide the broadest opportunities for learning.
