Northampton Museums in Motion

What did we do?

The project involved working closely with three schools, The Dustan School in Northampton and William Parker School and Danetre School from Daventry. The aim was to create a resource focusing on citizenship and diversity exploring what young people felt about heritage and culture in their local town.

Debra Cox, senior museum education manager and Rachel Stemp, freelance consultant, coordinated the project. They initially let schools know about the project through an advert in Northampton Borough Council's Children’s Services schools’ newsletter. They started by visiting interested schools and talking to teachers. the teachers' subject specialisms differed at each school, giving an interesting mix of subject areas for the project.

Each school then developed an individual element for the project following a variety of sessions for students. Museum staff initially went into the schools to run an introductory session on culture and heritage which asked students to comment on what culture and heritage meant to them in their home town, with a task of investigating heritage or culture in their local area. This was followed by a series of four sessions delivered by workshop leaders from Broadway, a professional film company. Sessions took place in school and in the museum on the following themes:

• Introduction to filmmaking
• Training and skills session in filmmaking
• Filming the project
• Editing

In between sessions students decided what they would like to film and created storyboards to aid project development. Film editing was carried out in a professional editing suite in Nottingham, which provided students with a real insight into the skills required for professional film making. This was an important part of the project but also meant large transport costs for the project.

Each school developed a DVD, each demonstrating a range of filming techniques. Copies of all the DVDs were circulated to schools in the local area so that other students can learn more about local heritage and culture and young people’s attitudes to it. The project ended with a celebratory screening of the films at the Forum cinema in Northampton, where students, their partents and teachers attended.

The project has led to a second filmmaking project with Northampton Museum and Art Gallery supporting Oundle Museum in a similar project with its local school, which is using Dustan School as a learning mentor for the project.

Learning outcomes

• The creation of an innovative learning resource for local schools focusing on citizenship and diversity,
• The young people developed confidence, an awareness of the culture and heritage of where they lived and new skills in filmmaking,
• A focus on citizenship focused students on what is happening locally and how they can impact on it,
• New perspectives have been gained on the opportunities for combining film and heritage to great effect,
• The museum has gained increased knowledge and understanding of how secondary schools work.