Museums and Schools Programme
A partnership of Isle of Wight museums is working together on a grant-funded project to enhance links between local schools and museums.
The project is funded by the Department for Education and administered by ArtsCouncil England. It is led, this year, by our Heritage Service. The other partners are:
- Brading Roman Villa
- Carisbrooke Castle Museum
- Classic Boat Museum
- Dimbola Museum and Gallery
- Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum
- Isle of Wight Cultural Education Partnership
The Museums and Schools programme offers quality engagement, connecting museums and local school children, while targeting areas with high levels of deprivation. Traditionally this has meant encouraging children into our museums. Exciting workshops have been delivered over the past three years and have been extremely well received. To date more than 7,700 children have benefitted from the scheme.
New Learning Opportunities for 2022
The Museums and Schools programme is excited to start the new year with some very special (and time-limited) offers from three different Island museums.
Discover the Island’s untold LGBT+ heritage with FREE workshops at Carisbrooke Castle Museum
To coincide with the opening of the Out on an Island exhibition, we are offering a limited number of free LGBTQ+ Awareness workshops. Run by Stonecrabs Theatre for key stage 3 and above students, they will be available on selected days from 28th Feb to 31st March.
Contact: franko@stonecrabs.co.uk
Experience the Classic Boat Museum’s new Dinghy Simulator in a FREE trial workshop
Help trial the brand new dinghy simulator with a free, full-day visit to the museum in East Cowes with workshops (KS1 and KS2) on: ‘Prepare to Sail! (Dingy Simulator)’; ‘Transport Through Time’ and ‘S.O.S. Safety at Sea’. Available on dates from 28th Feb to 31st March.
Contact: education@maritimeisle.org
Celebrate the opening of the ‘Creative Cross-Currents with India and Sri Lanka’ exhibition with discounted workshops at Dimbola Museum and Galleries
From 21st to 25th March there will be a full-day visit with a special package of workshops (KS1 and KS2) available for the discounted price of just £3.50 per pupil. Workshop topics include: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron and the Victorians’; ‘Daily life in the UK, India and Sri Lanka: Now and in Victorian times’ and ‘Creative Writing and Storytelling Inspired by India’.
Contact: education@dimbola.co.uk
Full information is available in this document (PDF, 3 pages, 1473 KB). Spaces are limited so don’t delay getting in touch to secure your booking!
Activities and Resources
Museums and Schools has developed a range of fun and creative resources for use in the classroom or at home including worksheets and artist-let videos. They are available to anyone to use before or after a visit to one of the museum sites included in the programme.
You can access many of them here.
Museums and Schools and Covid-19
The COVID-19 crisis restricted museum visits to our partner museum sites. In the Autumn of 2020 we adapted our sessions offering free museum workshops within schools. Over 1,000 children participated in these workshops which explored exciting topics based on our incredible sites and collections. Workshops included exploration of Prehistory, Romans, Victorians, Safety at Sea and Castles. Videos, artefacts and activities accompany each session to bring history to life in the classroom. Each workshop was designed and delivered alongside schools so we could meet COVID-19 health and safety needs. We are now working with teachers to adapt our resources for remote and home learning.
If teachers would like to find out more or receive assistance in planning resources then please email Richard Smout: richard.smout@iow.gov.uk
Museums and Schools and the Earth Museum
The Museums and Schools partnership is working with The Earth Museum. We are developing new KS2 and KS3 cross curricula learning resources for Island schools in the classroom, online and in museums. Four key curriculum-based themes have been identified:
- Isle of Wight before 1066
- Isle of Wight beyond 1066
- Science Innovation
- Global Island
To discover a little more about this project and get involved please visit the Earth Museum – Museums and Schools project.
Schools Workshops
View a little information about the museum sites and the workshops we have developed so far:
The Isle of Wight Cultural Education Partnership
The Cultural Education Partnership is a cooperative group of museums, schools and cultural organizations. We work to enable young people to access the cultural opportunities on the Isle of Wight. Visit the Cultural Education Partnership website to find out more.
Partners 2018-2020
Workshops developed by previous project partners can be found below: