Kids in Museums

Kids in Museums

National Takeover Day is an opportunity for young people and children to be given meaningful roles, working alongside staff and volunteers to participate in the life of the organisation.

This year over 150 museums, galleries, arts organisations, archives and heritage sites took part in Takeover Day, running events which involved over 4000 children .  The Churches Conservation Trust (CCT) worked with Free School Norwich (FSN) on a heritage conservation workshop; a unique opportunity to learn about the history of St John’s, Maddermarket, through heritage restoration processes.

They explored the building, before returning to school to complete first hand, child friendly, versions of heritage conservation, working in expert groups to explain their findings to their younger peers. Children worked collaboratively, with adults and independently in a number of fun tasks from stained glass jigsaws and heraldry cleaning, to stencilling and repairing damaged plastering. The opportunity aimed to raise aspirations and broaden experiences for high attaining pupils, inspiring future heritage specialists! The day was a real success and a lot of fun was had by all, with great comments from teachers, children and parents.  India, in Year 3 said 'I liked the church visit and restoring the old pictures, it was actually quite tricky.'

One parent noted  “An absolutely fantastic opportunity for the children; Alexa already loves history and it has inspired her to include history books on her Christmas list! The organisers were very clear and explanatory to the children about the church and the Conservation Trust; it combined history followed by interactive activities, which is a great method of learning and keeping the children’s' interest. Anything similar in the future I am sure will be very well received by the children as it also gets them out and about which they seem to find very exciting, many thanks for organising it.’

Over in the West, at St Lawrence's Church, Evesham, we've had another Takeover day with 90 school children attending. The theme of the Takeover day was a different viewpoint. In 1973 the artist JMW Turner came to Evesham.  He drew the buildings in and around the church and former abbey, including Lawrence’s Church, seen from an unusual angle.  Students used Turner’s drawings as inspiration by taking over the building, drawing its unusual or little seen features and viewpoints of the building and learning more about how artists work.  From these, a small selection of these will be turned into postcards to be sold in the church. Many thanks to all who took part!

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