The Fosse Primary School museum club

What did we do?

Researching what museums do

Encouraged by an enthusiastic head-teacher and collaborating with a Renaissance East Midlands worker, children from Fosse Primary School in Leicester formed an after-school club with the purpose of creating their museum in their school.

Initial research for the project included visiting two local museums to find out how museums work, including the roles of different staff and volunteers involved and how to look after collections. Museum club members delighted community residents with their interest in local history - interviewing local historians and older people and asking to borrow photographs and other objects in order to build the collection.

Taking on roles

Club members were supported to make as many decisions as possible and took on different roles (for example director, curator, conservator and ‘front of house’) reflecting what they had learned of the museum professions during their research.

Launching the musuem

The museum was launched during national Museums and Galleries Month (May 2006), with a grand opening attended by museum staff, parents, friends and teachers. The pupils, having seen how museum staff work, took particular pride in guiding those same staff around their own museum.

Inspired by the potential of museums, the club members not only visited other museums with their own friends and family but in one instance planned to create a similar club, if one didn’t exist, at the secondary school they were moving to.

What were the outcomes?

• 
  
• The museum has provided a rich school resource for the local history component of the National Curriculum at Key Stage 2.
  
• The participants learned about museums, about why and how we can collect, protect and interpret our heritage.
  
• They also improved research skills, for example, in making decisions about what to include in displays and what questions to ask interviewees.
  
• Students developed communication and interpersonal skills, for example, in approaching residents for museum loans, in writing labels and in guiding visitors around the museum.