Museum’s Learning Team Smash Visitor Records

An increase of 400 on the previous record-breaking year, this number includes special projects such as the MaxLiteracy-funded ‘Collect Connect Create’ where pupils from Newark Academy enjoyed tours of the museum’s resource centre and worked with celebrated Nottingham poet Ioney Smallhorne to create a new resource, soon to be available at www.maxliteracy.org/resources. The team also ventured out, taking their skills and remarkable resources into schools, both local like Lovers Lane and to those further afield including Beacon Academy in Cleethorpes, as well as presenting virtual lessons to primary and secondary schools throughout the UK.

Learning and Participation Team Leader Sarah Clarke said: “Given the pandemic and visiting restrictions, we are delighted and blown away by this achievement. We’ve been welcoming more and more students year on year and improving our skill sets, sessions and resources as we do so. Our team are hugely multi-talented and from one day to the next might be teaching musket drills to 7 year olds and leading an A-level object-handling session. I’m hugely proud of them and look forward to our continued growth next year.”

While the team have been busier than ever with young visitors, they’ve still managed to find the time to create fascinating new resources to help students learn in new and interesting ways. Working with the Education Outreach Team at Newcastle University Library, they developed a British Civil Wars website (https://britishcivilwars.ncl.ac.uk) for Key Stage 3, packed with activities, quizzes and games to help students learn about this hugely significant time. They’ve also produced more Discovery Boxes to loan out to schools. These are specially curated mini collections of objects which bring different periods of history to life as children unbox and explore them.

To find out more about school visits at the National Civil War Centre, visit www.nationalcivilwarcentre.com/learn or contact the team at civilwarlearning@nsdc.info.