Learning Outside the Classroom

Updated 25/11/09

Resources

Developing Learning Services at Your Organisation

Guidance Notes

It’s not always easy to find the time, resources and expertise to make changes to your learning services. These short, practical guides explain the benefits of developing your practice and give step by step advice on how to do it; they signpost useful resources and sources of further support so that you can take things to the next stage.

We hope that these guidance notes will:

The guidance notes below focus on topics which feature significantly in the Quality Indicators.  Click on these links:

Example Documents

Learning services and the way in which they are delivered differ from organisation to organisation. Your organisation’s learning service should be appropriate to both your collection/site and your means. But once you have begun the process of developing a particular aspect of your service, it is important not to do so in a vacuum.

 

These documents illustrate particular aspects of education practice in other heritage organisations. You can use these documents as a starting point for developing similar materials at your own organisation. They might also give you some ideas about what sort of “evidence” you might produce during a Quality Badge assessment visit. Click on the links.

Visit planning information

Brading Roman Villa (pdf 68KB)

This document is available to teachers to help them plan their visit. It provides important information such as costs, group sizes and adult/child ratios, opening times etc. It also includes a list of education activities available linked to learning objectives.

 

Schools pack

Natural History Museum (pdf 3302KB)

This document is available to teachers to help them find out what learning activities and resources are available at the Natural History Museum during the Spring Term. It links learning activities directly to the curriculum and to different key stages.

 

Booking form

Thinktank (pdf 37KB)

This is a schools booking form. It allows the organisation to collect important information about the visiting group including learning objectives, special requirements, numbers visiting etc.

 

Learning officer job description

Horniman Museum (pdf 68KB)

This job description focuses specifically on science learning, but highlights some of the important skills required by those delivering learning in a heritage environment.

 

Education volunteer job description

Osterley Park, National Trust (pdf 38KB)

This describes the role of an education volunteer at Osterley Park – although the roles of education volunteers vary between National Trust properties.

 

Volunteer enquiry and registration form

Osterley Park, National Trust (pdf 70KB)

Osterley Park send this form to individuals who are interested in exploring the possibility of volunteering at the organisation. It asks for important practical information such as availability, contact information etc, but also skills and experience as well as areas of interest.

 

Evaluation form (primary)

Museum of London (pdf 93KB)

This is an evaluation form for primary school visits, to be completed by the teacher. It asks the teacher to evaluate the experience against specific learning outcomes and also to evaluate the support received before and after the visit itself.

 

Health & safety guidelines

Thames Explorer Trust (pdf 3516KB)

These are health and safety guidelines for teachers and other group leaders planning visits to the Thames and its foreshore. These guidelines include the identification of risks and hazards and control measures; accident and emergency procedures; advice on environmentally responsible behaviour and examples of risk assessments, equipment lists etc.

 

Child & vulnerable adults protection policy

Museum of London (pdf 105KB)

This policy outlines the steps taken by the museum to protect children and vulnerable adults in various different scenarios.

 

Learning policy

Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre (pdf 37KB)

This education policy document outlines provision for learners, target learning audiences and objectives for the organisation’s learning service.