Work with Bensham Manor School in 2006

The Teacher Placement Scheme with Bensham Manor School began with the teachers using the BPMA Messages Through Time education pack to cherry-pick material for their citizenship teaching.

This was slightly unexpected, as the scheme normally sees teachers working in the archive/museum for a number of days to develop completely new resources. However, it did prove that our existing resources were still useful!

New resources from old
The teachers used the material from Messages Through Time in school over several weeks. You can download a PDF of the resources pack that the teachers put together.

First-hand history
We wanted the students to have a chance to come to the BPMA and experience the collections first-hand. We planned a series of workshops exploring citizenship through jobs in the Post Office, illustrated by our archives and objects including telegram pouches, scale weights, photographs, telegrams, and even vintage vehicles. The workshops deliberately included a range of activities to allow for a variety of learning styles within the students.

Art activity
The workshops resulted in a large silk screen printed banner based on the images and objects the students had encountered at the BPMA. This art element was used to emphasise the importance of the observational skills they built up working with the collections.

Thanks to the support of MLA London, we were able to welcome 19 students to our two sites. This project has helped the BPMA to develop reusable lessons plans and activities to work with schools at our own sites. We have also established good links with a school which we would probably not have encountered otherwise.

The students had the chance to engage with heritage collections and see the results of their work brought together in a banner they had designed themselves. The students clearly enjoyed visiting the Archive and the Museum Store, using the historic material as the basis for some brilliant art work (your can see some of their sketches in the Kids Gallery).

Lasting benefits
Staff from User Services, Cataloguing and Collections management helped to deliver the BPMA workshops, so experience and confidence with school groups was developed beyond the Access & Learning team.