Learning

A guest post by Isobel Evans, work experience student from Marriotts School, Stevenage

Isobel studies a museum accesion register, where we record items donated to the museum from 1914 to present day

Coming to north herts museum for my year twelve work experience was really enjoyable and gave me a lot of insight as to how a museum functions and how they prepare for exhibitions. The staff were really friendly which made my week here really fun. My work experience took place during the half term and the beginning of a new exhibition which meant I got to see a lot of people’s enthusiasm of the museum and what it displayed. Learning more about the history of the areas in which I grew up in and around was really insightful as it allowed me to learn about things that I more than likely wouldn’t of found out about anywhere else. Another thing that was interesting, were the accession books. Throughout the week, I spent a bit of time going through a few of them and helping log them onto a website they use to track what they have and also onto a spreadsheet. Seeing this was really insightful as I got to see what kind of things are donated to the museum and sometimes they were items I hadn’t heard of before and so it led to me researching them to gain a further understanding.

Thanks for all of your work during your week Isobel, all the best from us here at North Herts Museum.

Mia with some youth group archive

 

 

Guest Post by Mia Hoskins

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at North Herts Museum. In addition to gaining experience working as front of house, I got to see everything behind the scenes. I gained access to some amazing spaces such as the Archive, the Art Store and the Costume Store. The collections were extensive and fascinating. I received an in depth tour of the galleries and had several interesting discussions with the curators about how each display was carefully curated. I learned a lot about Digitisation and Data Entry, as well as being given the task of sorting through a collection of minutes describing youth groups/youth culture in the 60s and 70s. I also had the pleasure of organising and numbering a collection of stones painted by a local school during lockdown. A lot of the stones consisted of topical and inspirational messages advocating for BLM, LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality and celebrating the NHS. It was lovely to see children using their creativity to make a positive change during the pandemic. I was also able to work with a group of children in a hand print workshop which tied into the wonderful ‘Tiger Who Came To Tea’ exhibition. Working with the public has been very enjoyable. I would like to thank the whole team at North Herts Museum for being so welcoming and helpful and for giving me some exceptional careers advice. It’s thoroughly prepared me for my MA in Museum and Gallery Studies. 

Good luck on the MA from all at North Herts!

North Hertfordshire Museum and Stevenage Museum, with funding from the Royal Opera House Bridge Organisation, are working together to improve their digital learning offer. Both museums tell the stories of their local areas, and include wide-ranging collections: natural history, archaeology, fine art, costume and local history collections. The collections will provide the inspiration for the online learning.

We will be working with a focus group of teachers to discuss what schools want and how we can deliver effective online learning resources. As the project progresses, we will test the digital resources with these schools to evaluate their effectiveness.

We are looking for an experienced professional who can help us devise digital learning resources. We anticipate this will be a blended offer of short film, online quizzes/interactives and worksheets (including printed instructions for craft activities, science experiments and creative challenges for example). The learning officers at both museums have extensive experience of devising activities for schools and families, but we have identified a skills gap with digital delivery, particularly making short films and online interactives, so this is the area we anticipate the successful applicant will help develop, upskilling staff and volunteers by offering training and then modelling good practice by making resources with them.

For further details, see here [PDF].