Work with Rotherfield and Roehampton

The MLA Teacher Placement Scheme in 2007 was set up differently to the previous year. Instead of linking working teachers with heritage organisations, the scheme focused on Initial Teacher Training (ITT). The aim was for student teachers to improve their understanding of the heritage sector by working somewhere like the BPMA.

Roehampton student teachers
We were paired with two second year student teachers from Roehampton University (Roehampton is one of the most significant teacher training institutions in London).

We met the students in February and talked about what would happen when they came to the BPMA later that month. We were able to explain the richness of our collections, and how some of our other learning projects have worked.

Rotherfield and Royal Mail Group
Around the same time, we wre approached by Neil Andrew, a member of the central human resources team at Royal Mail Group.

Neil wanted to develop a pilot project which allowed his colleagues to work with a local school. This was part of Royal Mail's Social Policy work. Thanks to Islington Business Partnerships, we met with Jo Barrett, Assistant Head Teacher at Rotherfield Primary School.

We took along our Penny Black resource pack which Jo thought was fantastic. We explained how we had used it with Young Cultural Creators in 2006: illustrating envelopes to tell a social message.

Communicating ideas
Jo got very excited about connecting the history of the postal service to another project. This was to help pupils imagine their route to their 'dream job'.

Jo explained that at this particular school, where few pupils have adult role models who have gone on to university education, it was important to help pupils understand the stages they would have to go through to get to their dream job.

She felt that the history of the post could add something to this. We weren't quite clear how this was all going to work, but we resolved to try!

School sessions
The Roehampton students were at BPMA for a week. We went to the school to help introduce the way the post had really changed in 1840, with postage stamps and Uniform Penny Postage.

The rest of the week saw the students planning a follow-up at the archive. They found this quite challenging: as teachers they were used to only having a short time for planning, not three days! It was also difficult to try and connect to the 'dream job' idea...

In March the Year 6 class came to the BPMA. The Roehampton students led the session, with BPMA's Steve Gardam putting in a special appearance as 'Rowland Hill'! The pupils learned how the postal system works in stages, from letter to pillar box to sorting office to delivery.

They found out - from asking 'Rowland Hill' - how the Victorian postal reform made the system more sophisticated and efficient. At the end of the day they all contributed to a great poster that we were able to get professionally printed, thanks to our grant from MLA London.

Royal Mail Group volunteers
The archive session worked really well on its own. However, after the Roehampton students had returned to their studies, we went back to Rotherfield. We still had to link back to the idea of the 'dream job'...

The answer was to show how the stages of postal delivery could be compared to the stages the pupils would have to go through to get their dream job.

For example, we helped one child identify the stages they would need to go through to become a vet: from the last year of primary school, to secondary school, to exams (in the right subjects!), to university and work experience.

This might sound too simple, but it was easy to see the understanding growing in the class. The Royal Mail Group volunteers were a brilliant 'teaching aid'. As adults who work in training and development, they had more awareness of what might be needed to build a career, and they shared this with the pupils.

The project finished with Year 6 designing banners to show their route from Rotherfield to their dream jobs. Royal Mail Group sponsored these banners and they have become a legacy from Year 6 to future Rotherfield pupils.

This Teacher Placement project was quite different to 2006, but it was very rewarding for everyone involved.