East of England
Training Day Report
Museums and early years groups
This training day aimed to help museum educators
improve the quality of their programming by developing sessions for early years.
The day included advice from curriculum co-ordinators as well as practical
advice on how to run sessions.
Venue:
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich NR1 3JQ
Date:
Wednesday 12 July
Over 40 GEM members attended the event which included a variety of practical workshops and talks. The first talk looked at the Foundation Curriculum and how museums can work with Early Years Co-ordinators and pre-school/foundation stage teachers. The talk was illustrated by some very useful case studies from Cromer and Sheringham that demonstrated the importance of breaking down barriers between young children and museums through active engagement.
The latter theme was developed through a carousel of five workshops consisting of demonstrations of sessions for young children developed by Colchester and Norfolk Museum services. The workshops were:
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'Fairy Tale House - Houses and Homes for early years visitors' (Thetford Museum)
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Treasure Chest (Gressenhall)
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Stay and Play at the Natural History Museum (Colchester Natural History Museum)
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Night and Day (Norwich Museums)
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Looking at Paintings (Norwich Museums).
The workshops were interspersed with an interesting talk on the 'Big and Small' Sure Start programme at Tate Britain and the day finished with an opportunity for participants to share their experiences of working with early years groups.
This event was supported by:
Renaissance East of England