The Geffrye - Take over day!

© The Geffrye Museum 

The day was held on Friday 23^rd November. Working in partnership with Hackney Learning Trust the museum had invited numerous schools across the borough to participate in their SEN Forum. Each school could sign up two children from Year 6 to come along and trial different aspects of the museum. There was then an opportunity to collect their thoughts and ideas for change and present them at the end of the day to the museum staff.

The day started with an introduction session which included a look at the visual timetable and a fun game to get the children moving. The rest of the morning was dedicated to workshops:

Role Play This was a drama session for highlighting questions children might ask staff in a museum. Some of the results found were that maybe the museum could display more signs and review the current disability access situation.

Creating a resource Giving way to the children imaginations they looked in the Garden Reading Room for inspiration and returned to the Quiz desk area to develop ideas of something new and affordable the staff can use in future. The ideas that came from this were maybe making 3D paper nets that the children can cut and colour of something relevant like furniture, also making sashes or badges with the existing material.

Design a Garden With the funding for a new children’s play area this workshop was designed to allow for individual expression of games and activities they would like to see in a garden. Some great results were the inclusion of topiary animals, flower styles trampolines, sensory garden and even hopscotch.

 

Audio Guide The children chose a postcard of a room and had to find it and then listen to the audio guide. They could then review and suggest improvements on the current guide. The set up got them thinking about how they could have some sort of matching or visual quiz where by you had to find something within the room. They also suggested having head phones that could be shared and maybe using more music.

During the afternoon the children separated into two groups to discuss their findings. This gave them a chance to speak their mind and put across ideas. They made a short presentation to each other and came up with 3 things for each workshop that could be improved.

My day was spent moving around from each group collecting feedback from the children, schools representatives and the museum staff.

This was said between myself and one student from Gainsborough Primary “So if asked you marks out of 5 for the museum, what would you say?” “10.” One of the LSAs from Randle Cremer School said, “I’d give the visual timetable thumbs up! The day has been fun and interactive. It’s been better than expected and the leaders have been very good. Although the children where initially disappointed to be missing an assembly in school they are happy now” Emma from the museums education department stated, “I think the most useful thing today is the fact that the children aren’t restricted by and preconception of what a museum can be and they’ve just come in with all these very refreshing and some times quite bonkers ideas which actually as Janice said we can distil into something that they can then come back and actually see so they’re going to see their ideas in practice”

In conclusion the day was a great opportunity for the schools, children and museum to learn a lot more about each other and the event showcase the museum to some children who had never been before. The children were awarded their certificates and packs and the museum thanked them for their ideas.

For more infomation about Take Over Day click visit the Kids in Museum website http://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/