Context

Renaissance in the Regions is a programme funded by DCMS (Department of Culture, Media and Sport) and managed by MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council).  It is a national scheme to transform England’s regional museums to meet the needs of their users.  As part of Renaissance, a partnership of museums, or ‘Hub’ has been formed in each English region. 

The work of the North East Regional Museums Hub is aimed at making a real difference for museum audiences, existing and new across the region.  The experiences gained from the Hub’s work are shared across our region for the benefit of all museums and their users. The Hub Learning Team employs specialists in teaching and learning to support the development of museum services across the region to schools, families and other learning organisations.

Aims & principles

ELM is co-ordinated by the North East Regional Museums Hub’s Literacy Officer. The project was developed in order to:

• improve the writing skills of primary school children by using museum resources
• raise awareness that museum visits can help to develop literacy skills
• inspire confidence in museum educators that they can support literacy learning
• champion partnership working between schools and museums to support visits
• provide evidence that museum visits can help raise literacy standards

In Practice

The ELM project was piloted with 5 Newcastle primary schools in 2007 and 2008. Each school worked in partnership with a museum to plan and deliver a cross-curricular scheme of work over half a term. This scheme of work culminated in pupils creating a final piece of writing, inspired by the visit to their partner museum.

The project has since been expanded, and in 2008/09, worked with 21 classes from 10 more schools in Newcastle. A booklet celebrating ELM’s successes is available, and the project is continuing to grow.

Each year, the teachers and museum educators participating in the project attend an INSET day, where partners can meet for the first time. Louise Lennox, a teacher from Cragside Primary School, delivers training in using speaking and listening techniques in the classroom and the museum to explore and consolidate ideas. Participants investigate how purposeful talk during museum visits can be used to improve writing. Time is also set aside for school and museum pairings to begin to plan their scheme of work, with support from Janet Longbottom, Advanced Skills Teacher for Creativity and Culture. Partners take a cross-curricular approach to improving writing by adapting a topic they have already planned to cover that half-term.

Each scheme of work is built around a workshop in a museum or gallery, with classroom time set aside before and after the visit to support and build on new ideas. The visits themselves make use of the speaking and listening techniques covered during the INSET day, involving pupils in roleplay activities, debates, evidence-gathering and paired talk. These techniques are revisited back at school, giving pupils the chance to orally rehearse their work before producing their final pieces of writing.

The range of museums and galleries involved in the ELM project has led to a variety of writing genres being explored: children have written newspaper reports about a murder at Beamish Museum, mystery stories about paintings missing from the Hatton Gallery, articles advertising the Blaydon Races and letters home from Anglo-Saxon monks.

Partnerships

Participating museums:
Beamish Museum, County Durham
Bede’s World, Jarrow
Discovery Museum, Newcastle
Durham Cathedral, Durham
Hatton Gallery, Newcastle
Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths & Museum, Wallsend
Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
Souter Lighthouse, Whitburn
South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, South Shields
Stephenson Railway Museum, North Tyneside
Woodhorn, Ashington

Participating schools:
Archibald First School
English Martyrs’ RC Primary School
Gosforth Park First School
Kenton Bar Primary School
Kingston Park Primary School
Moorside Community Primary School
Newburn Manor Primary School
Ravenswood Primary School
St George’s RC Primary School
St Joseph’s RC Primary School
Thomas Walling Primary School
Throckley Primary School
Waverley Primary School
West Denton Primary School
Westerhope Primary School

Outcomes

Teachers marked pre- and post-project writing from an average of 10 pupils per class. Over the first 2 years of the project, 245 pupils’ writing was sampled. 75% of these pupils improved their writing by at least 1 National Curriculum sub-level, with some making progress by as many as 4 sub-levels.

Teachers and museum educators valued the opportunity to work together over an extended period of time and being able to plan together to make stronger links between classroom work and museum visits. Some schools have gone on to repeat their schemes of work with subsequent year groups, and museums have new workshops with speaking and listening at their core that can be offered to other groups.

Attitudes and attainment after the project

Teachers commented that their pupils were more engaged with and enthusiastic about writing, producing longer and more detailed work.

“The writing from this topic has instilled belief and shown the children how much they are capable of producing. One boy in the class wrote three lines in his Year 4 optional SATs test. When writing his recount he produced 6 pages. His confidence has grown immensely.”  Throckley Primary School

“The children were enthused …and eager to learn…They enjoyed the activities and were keen to write…Even the most reluctant writer’s attitude toward writing changed.” Moorside Primary School

82% of children surveyed felt they were ‘good writers’ at the end of the project compared to 71% before.

”I think my writing has improved a little bit because when we went to the [Shipley] Gallery we dressed up. And when you write the story I just imagine that the main character is me like I’m acting.” year 5 pupil, English Martyrs’ RC Primary School

“[The best piece of writing I’ve done recently is] my Beamish recount because it was a good trip which made it good to write about.” – year 5 pupil, Throckley Primary School

Legacy

The project continues to run on an annual basis and will now be extended to schools in Gateshead. The teaching structure used in the project will also inform other work delivered and supported by the North East Regional Museums Hub.

Resources

All the visits made extensive use of the museums’ collections, with many sessions also featuring handling objects for hands-on inspiration. Some schools also borrowed museum loans boxes to use in the classroom, creating class museums and using object handling lessons as an introduction to the topic as a whole.

Schools participating in the early stages of the project received a 50% bursary towards the cost of supply cover for one teacher to attend the initial INSET day. The cost of one class visiting their partner museum (transport plus any admission fees) was also covered by the North East Regional Museums Hub. These costs were match funded by Newcastle Council’s Advisor for Creativity and Culture for schools with a 2-form intake, enabling both classes in a year group to take part.

Final thought

The project as a whole runs smoothly each year, with great results, thanks to the dedication and creativity of the teachers and museum educators involved. Unfortunately, time pressures limit the amount of face-to-face support the Hub Literacy Officer can provide to each school and museum during delivery of the project. In general this has little impact on the running of the project, but there are some instances in which partners may have benefited from more advice or someone to talk ideas through with – although of course it is always possible to do this via email or telephone calls.

During the pilot project it became clear that the more closely a school and museum worked together, the greater the impact on pupils’ writing, and so in the second year museum educators were encouraged to visit their partner school and work with the children in the classroom as well as at the museum. This has helped to strengthen relationships. One museum in particular made a point of visiting their school at the end of the project for a celebration event, which gave the pupils something to work towards and a real focus for their writing.

Time will now be spent returning to schools who have participated in ELM and exploring any long-term impact the project may have had; for example, pupils maintaining their writing levels, new teaching techniques still being used, partnerships with museums continued.

---

Comments on ELM (Exploring Literacy through Museums)

Be the first to comment on this project