Do very young children and museums really mix? Answers emerging from a recent partnership initiative in Suffolk suggest they can - and that when they do, the experience can be rewarding, joyful and beneficial for all.
Under-fives, and certainly the under-fours and threes, tend to be something of a neglected audience group, particularly in smaller museums. Most of what is traditionally on offer relates to their school-age brothers and sisters.
The move to develop something more specific for an early years audience began in the small, volunteer-run Lowestoft Maritime Museum, in one of the county's more deprived areas. Working with an education consultant and two early years practitioners, the museum created a sailor's sack of objects and activities inspired by the town's seafaring heritage. This was for pre-schools and nurseries to borrow and use in their settings. Everything in this unique learning resource was linked to the EYFS framework. The take-up of this pilot was good and proved easy for the museum to manage and sustain.
Seeing this success and recognising its potential, Suffolk museum development worked with the county's Early Years and Childcare Service to identify other museums and local settings that could use this model to develop similar offers. Seven further partnerships were brokered between museums and pre-schools, nurseries, playgroups and registered childminders. Project funding paid for good-quality resources and was available for backfill so settings could release staff to work on development. Each partnership also had the support of a paid freelance education consultant.
Although everyone involved approached the initiative from different perspectives, both 'sides' tended to share many of the same concerns at the outset: would the children find enough to interest them; would they be safe; would they want to touch things; would things get damaged?
Some museum staff and volunteers lacked knowledge of the EYFS. By the same token, some in the early years sector didn't know much about museums, or lacked positive experiences of visiting them in the past. Addressing these barriers was part of the process and often encouraged the museums to take a wider look at their 'child friendliness' in general. Together they were also able to tackle practical matters like the need for risk assessments.
COLLABORATIONS
The ideas that emerged from these collaborations were exciting and innovative, reflecting the museums' diverse collections and touching all aspects and areas of learning in the EYFS.
Newmarket's horse-racing museum came up with 'A Day at the Races', embracing everything from dressing up in jockeys' silks and having a race day picnic, to making the sound of hooves with coconut shells.
- Lowestoft Museum took inspiration from its porcelain collection to introduce all sorts of tea-time stories and role play.
- Moyse's Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds took a mathematical approach to clocks and time.
- Leiston's Long Shop Museum, based at a former engineering works, encouraged investigation into shape, size, tools and patterns.
- The Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket had fun with toy farm animals.
- The fine art environment of Thomas Gainsborough's House in Sudbury focused on colours and textiles, frames and faces.
Ipswich made the most of its popular woolly mammoth to invite exploration of the wider museum.
It was always recognised that this initiative could provide an important opportunity to stimulate communication and vocabulary and would help early language development. It's hard to get far in a museum without a 'What's that?', 'Look at this!' or 'Can you see...?' Simple tools such as magnifying glasses and torches were found to encourage shared experiences and conversations.
Marketing the offers to more settings is a work in progress. The new resources were first piloted last year, and several of the museums close during the winter months. Spring and summer are seen as the time when most groups will favour a visit.
Some project feedback included:
'The children really loved having the box and it provided lots of fantastic activities for them to do. They even went home and talked about it at the weekend' (a pre-school teacher).
'The parents were quite unsure of going to the museum but they were very surprised and pleased with the trip and how it was put together' (a playgroup leader).
'(The children) liked the build-up and the surprise of what the basket contained ... and were very eager to explore its contents. They particularly liked the role-play masks, everything associated with having a picnic and the teddy bear. We made our own choice of sandwiches and picked our favourite cakes, talking about their shape and fillings, healthy snacks, making cakes and choices' (a registered childminder).
'Observing young children exploring the museum has opened my eyes to see things in new ways and to notice things I had never seen before' (a museum learning officer).
CASE STUDY
'This is amazing. It's amazing in here' was three-year-old Ashley's response to dressing up in an animal costume and as an ancient Egyptian at Ipswich Museum, an activity that he was able to choose and access himself. At Wigwams Neighbourhood Nursery, he is one of the quieter children, and until then no-one had known of this interest.
When the museum and nursery began working together, it was the start of an exciting journey in every sense. Because the museum is in the town centre and the nursery is on the outskirts, Wigwams brought the children, aged three and four, on the bus. On the way, they recognised numbers, direction and landmarks and shared their knowledge of place, making getting there a positive part of the experience.
They took photographs of things that caught their interest and afterwards the nursery created a display featuring their words and drawings - of the museum's giraffe, the rhino and the 'man with a big sword'. One boy was so enthusiastic that his mother had to take him back to the museum the following weekend and for several weekends after that.
The nursery fed back its first impressions to the museum. These were: children needed some prior knowledge to make a visit more effective; the entrance was intimidating; there was so much to see; bigger and better directions were required; they wanted things they could handle and touch.
In response, a museum learning officer brought a box of objects to a handling session at the nursery and also came up with the idea of creating a 'Woolly's Adventures' picture book to show everyone what to expect. Staff found that exploring these new resources with the children helped them plan better.
The museum put up a pictorial map in the foyer to help the children make choices about what to see and where to go. Magnifying glasses and torches helped to focus their attention and observation. Themed activity bags containing a mixture of open-ended activities to encourage conversation and exploration were placed in the foyer for families as well as early years visitors to use.
This time the children were more confident and started to recognise artefacts. They asked why and how questions and discussed objects with each other and with adults. Charlie wrote a letter and hid it for someone to find. One girl 'flew' around on wings borrowed from a Flying Things bag.
From the nursery's point of view, the experience contributed to all aspects of learning in the EYFS and triggered language for communication and thinking. The children's speech benefited, they demonstrated increased social interactions and they gained in PSED.
The museum also felt it gained a lot. Other settings have been borrowing Woolly's box and book, and the museum has since developed gallery boxes that visiting early years and childcare groups can use to run their own sessions in the museum. It holds monthly Mini Mammoths activity sessions for parents and pre-school children and provides an activity trolley for visiting young explorers. And the dressing-up costumes continue to go down a storm.
- Visit www.suffolkmuseums.org.uk and go to 'Resources Education' for a list of participating museums and their contact details
Ruth Gillan is museum project officer, Suffolk County Council Culture, Sport and Communities
