Teacher engagement and maintaining school relationships

by Alison Tew, Learning Officer

At Ipswich Museum, we are dedicated to providing high quality learning programmes for schools and colleges, so that our collections can be used to enhance and inform subjects across the curriculum and across age groups. However, to be able to offer targeted resources and experiences, we need to consult teaching staff directly. This is where our Teacher Advisory Panel comes in.

We have an open invitation to teachers from all school types – Primary, Secondary, Sixth Form, SEN and Alternative Provision – to join us for discussions once a term. We have now moved this event from online to in-person, and held our first, highly successful event, on 22^nd October 2024. Twelve enthusiastic participants joined us at Christchurch Mansion to talk about how Ipswich Museums can support their learners.

Teacher Perks

In addition to tea and cake, each participant was given an exclusive discount card to use in the shop at Christchurch Mansion – great for seasonal shopping!

We were treated to a fantastic preview of the forthcoming exhibitions that will be on at the Wolsey Art Gallery after the current exhibition, An Eye For Life: Photography by John Ferguson. Art Curator, Emma Roodhouse, led a discussion about what schools might want us to offer relating to workshops on colour, shape and pattern, plus looking ahead to a series of landmark John Constable exhibitions celebrating his 250^th birthday.

What’s On Now

We explained what the current education offers are at the museum and what is coming up:

Anglo-Saxons On-the-Road: This is live on the website and available to book, focusing on the rich archaeology that Ipswich has for this period of history. Aimed mainly at Key Stage 2, we will come out to schools to deliver a hands-on workshop with creative brooch-making, plus role-play, games, and puzzles.

Ancient Egyptians On-the-Road: We have successfully trialled a SEN version of this museum-favourite workshop for KS2, and the main offer is almost ready to go live for booking for the new spring term. Here we focus on archaeology skills and asking questions, handling real Ancient Egyptian artefacts. Plus we have some fun with role-play, looking at the River Nile, mummification and the afterlife.

These new workshops are in addition to those already bookable on-site at Christchurch Mansion: Victorians and Art in a Day for KS1 and KS2, and our ever-popular Toys for KS1. Have a look at our website for more details: School Trips | Ipswich Museums

Secondary and Sixth Form Provision

Our Learning Team are keen to expand provision for older students at Christchurch Mansion, and at Ipswich Museum when it reopens. We began this with a week of workshops in September relating to the An Eye For Life: Photography by John Ferguson exhibition. The format worked well, and we are now developing an A-Level Art History Workshop that will be trialled in December. Look out for updates via social media, or sign up to receive our newsletter here: Join the mailing list . If you have an idea for a secondary school or sixth form workshop that you would like to see us offer, do get in touch with the learning team and we will see what we can do. ipswichmuseums.learning@colchester.gov.uk

Free Teacher CPD

We were really excited to introduce our forthcoming free conference for teaching staff scheduled for Wednesday 5^th February at Kesgrave Conference Centre. The focus will be on teaching a culturally diverse curriculum using local to global stories.

We know that schools are tasked with teaching a decolonised curriculum and we want to provide busy staff with a selection of stories and to suggest ways to go about teaching them. The full programme is still in development, but we do have a special keynote speaker lined up – Raksha Dave, author, archaeologist, and broadcaster. Her book ‘Lessons From our Ancestors’ has lots of alternative stories along with the associated historical evidence, for teachers to use to broaden children’s horizons and understanding. We think she will be a terrific speaker.

In addition, we will have talks from Historic England on the history of disability, Suffolk Libraries will suggest excellent books to use with students, and our very own museum curators will talk about diversity in Roman Britain and Hidden Histories, among other subjects still to be announced.

If you are a teacher and would like to join us for the day, please sign up here:

This is a FREE event. We provide refreshments but ask that you bring your own packed lunch.

Join Us

Our next TAP meeting will be in the spring term (March/April) in-person at Christchurch Mansion again, from 3pm-5pm. We will announce the date and sign-up details in January 2025. Along with discussions and updates we will offer you refreshments and an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience. The collections across our museum sites relate to subjects such as history, art, biology, geography, music and religious studies, so there are many potential areas for us to develop with you. Tell your colleagues and get involved. We look forward to seeing you in 2025.