Why should you use museums?

2007-08 Learning Links

Learning Links is the only museum and archive learning programme funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). In the East Midlands, Learning Links projects offer schools, museums and archives the opportunity to work together to participate in reciprocal CPD placements and develop creative, innovative education projects.

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Arresting solutions at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

To enable greater access and use of the Derbyshire Police Collection, Buxton Museum created two teacher-led resource boxes. The boxes support the teaching of citizenship at Key Stage 3, specifically Unit 2 Crime, but they also make cross curricular links through supporting activities.

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Art Explorers at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery identified a CPD (Continuous Professional Development) focus to increase the knowledge of art education at primary and secondary levels. Working with teachers from Buxton Community School and Dove Holes C of E Primary School, the museum was able to observe, plan and deliver art sessions across Key Stages, whilst developing a range of art focused resources and activities for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 for use in the museum and in the classroom.

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Art in the classroom - the Lincolnshire Art Loan Scheme

Lincolnshire Heritage Services adapted its existing corporate art loan project to school, so that pupils and teachers could borrow and be inspired by art works.

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Discovery boxes at Millgate Museum

Millgate Museum, Newark, worked with secondary schools to audit the museum collections for use with groups from Key Stages 3 and 4. Together they created a history of medicine discovery box and explored the differences and similarities between school-based and museum-based learning.

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Dress Codes

Working with six museums, young people explored traditional and popular cultures through fashion and dress. Their creative work was shared on Youth Culture Day and in exhibitions that toured the East Midlands.

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From slavery to citizenship, the Nottinghamshire experience

Nottinghamshire Archives worked with local secondary schools to create a web-based resource, linked to the Key Stage 3 Citizenship and History curricula.

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In Your Shoes

Creating a set of online learning resources means that all schools can benefit from the learning opportunities offered by the largest and finest collection of shoes and footwear in the world.

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ITE: A Trip Out

Final year B.Ed trainee teachers planned and organised the use of museum resources with pupils in their final placement. They worked closely with their mentors to identify possible curriculum links and resources. A series of case studies demonstrate the effects of a museum experience on four trainee teachers, their mentors and pupils. They examine the impact on learners of using museums, helping to identify good practice, successes, barriers and suggestions for future use of museum resources.

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ITE: Induction Week Activities at Derby City Museums

Trainee teachers undertook drama activities at Pickford’s House, carried out an observation task at the Silk Mill and explored exhibitions at Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

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ITE: Museum Showcase at University of Derby

This unique event was held in partnership between Museums, Libraries and Archives East Midlands (MLA East Midlands) and the Initial Teacher Education Department at University of Derby. It involved trainee teachers, teachers from partnership schools, and colleagues from museum and heritage sites in the East Midlands.

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Learn with Museums at Belper North Mill

Working with local teachers (through the Learning Links programme), local schools and regional Museum Education Workers, the historic North Mill on the River Derwent at Belper developed materials to aid classroom learning and improve museum visits for young people.

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Lincolnshire Heritage Services loans boxes

Lincolnshire Heritage Services has improved its loans box service, taking elements of the museum out to even more people in schools and the wider community.

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Little People Big Ideas at Crich Tramway Village

Crich Tramway Village worked with Sure Start to target non-museum user families with children under five who live in deprived areas. The project linked into the Foundation Curriculum early learning goals and provided a sound base for Citizenship at Key Stage 1.

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Northampton Museums in Motion

Northampton Museum and Art Gallery worked with local secondary schools in Northamptonshire to enable young people to act as cultural champions by exploring the heritage, culture and communities of their own town through the medium of film.

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Old and New in Newbold Verdon

Newbold Verdon Primary School's Autism Unit worked with Leicestershire Heritage Services to develop 'Old and New' museum-based resources and activities for use by students with special educational needs. The project enabled teachers and museum staff to develop new skills and knowledge and to create a strong partnership for the future.

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Refugee Week

Leicester City Arts and Museums has worked with schools in Refugee Week since 2003, aiming to develop understanding of the asylum and refugee experience.

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Rights and Responsibilities at Kettering Museum

Linking to the bicentenary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the project created citizenship related learning resources. Local abolisitinist, William Knibb, is the focus for the loans boxes which raise issues of modern slavery and the power of individuals to change the world.

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Saving the past, inspiring the future - the Lazarus Loans project

A condemned collection was saved to create schools and community loans boxes to introduce thousands of people to objects from the past.

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The Fosse Primary School museum club

Children explored the history of their local area to create their own museum.

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Transforming Tattershall

Citizenship and diversity were the key themes behind the Learn with Museums project at Tattershall Castle. Tattershall Castle is located within a challenging area, geographically and socially, and interpretation of the site for local schools has proved difficult. Staff at Tattershall Castle wanted to create community-focused learning resources to meet the needs of the local primary school, the local secondary school and the local University of the Third Age(U3A).

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Using archives to support Key Stages 3 and 4

Over a six-day reciprocal placement, Magdalen College School in Brackley worked with staff from the Northamptonshire Record Office to create sixth form and Gifted and Talented resources for evidence based learning. This was the school's first experience of working directly with the Record Office and it has enabled them to develop a local history focus for their curriculum.

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War and Peas - a Second World War musical

A youth theatre group created a touring musical based on local people's memories of the Second World War.

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Young Creative Consultants

Lincolnshire Heritage Services worked with young people to improve its services for people under 18.

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