News Release
NUMERACY
SPIN FOR MUSEUM EDUCATION VISITS
Museums are becoming adept at turning their fascinating
collections to advantage. Responding to the Government’s initiatives on education and
access they are fast meeting the challenge of the new emphasis on numeracy in primary
schools by adapting their schools education programmes.
Museum education officers met for a training day at the Weald
& Downland Open Air Museum, near Chichester, West Sussex to discover how to put a
numeracy spin on school visits. Special programmes can assist teachers tackling the new
numeracy hour in their quest to make the subject fun, and at the same time encourage a
different target school audience to visit the Museum.
"Teachers may not have thought of a museum visit as a way
of teaching numeracy," says Sue Shave, Weald and Downland Museum education officer,
and south east convenor for the Group for Education in Museums, who ran the event.
"The aim is to make education officers aware of the vast range of ways in which
mathematics can be taught using a museum collection, almost whatever the subject
area."
At the Weald & Downland Museum, Tim Copeland, head of the
International Centre for Heritage Education at Cheltenham & Gloucester College, turned
training day delegates into children and led them through practical sessions using the Museum’s historic building exhibits to explore mathematical concepts. Activities
included - What math's was used in a building?, Making a direction sign post with
directions and distances, Why did builders use symmetrical shapes?, Which was the most
important room, scoring out of ten?, What was important in the design of a building - look
for symmetry, number patterns and proportion?, What shapes were used and why?
Museums and their collections could provide exercises in number,
algebra, shape and space, measures and data handling, he explained. Results and
observations could be fed into the numeracy hour back at school.
Fort Nelson at nearby Portsmouth provided a case study of how
the military collections and buildings had been used in a range of mathematical
investigations for school groups. One activity was based on how cannon balls were piled up
in a pyramid. Fort Nelson had also held a summer school which helped enthuse previously
non-motivated children enjoy math's and number activities. Teachers from Cams Hill School,
Fareham and Admiral Lord Nelson School described the positive effect the new programmes
had on the children’s mathematical skills.
"Putting us in the place of children to carry out practical
mathematical exercises enabled us to learn a great deal about how the children would
respond," says Emily Leach, education officer at the River & Rowing Museum,
Henley-on-Thames, winner of the 1999 Museum of the Year Award. "Although the
exercises were all based on the buildings at the Weald & Downland Museum, they could
be easily adapted for other types of collection. The following day I changed what I was
planning with a visiting school looking at the River Thames to include numeracy. We were
able to find out how much activity was damaging the river and how much wasn’t."
Sue Shave runs an ambitious programme of specialist workshops
for schools at the independently-run Weald & Downland Museum, designated by the
Government last year for the importance of its collections. These have concentrated on
building technology, the Tudor and Victorian periods and literacy, all geared to the
requirements of the National Curriculum. With the assistance of a dedicated band of
specially tutored "education volunteers," she is now busy weaving numeracy into
the matrix. Over 30,000 school children a year are served by the Museum.
"Demonstrating how we can put together structured and fun
numeracy programmes for school children is important for museums," she says. "We
hope to be able to persuade math's and science teachers that there is as much for their
pupils in museums as there is for history and geography classes on more traditional school
visits," she says.
A full report about the GEM Numeracy and Museums training
event at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum is available from Sue Shave on 01243
811459. Fax 01243 811475. Email education@wealddown.co.uk. Website www.wealddown.co.uk
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The award-winning Weald & Downland Open Air Museum has over
45 historic building exhibits from town and country. It was recently Designated by the
Government for the outstanding importance of its collections. Visitors can discover the
medieval farmstead, the working watermill producing stoneground flour, the 16th
century market hall, a delightful pair of 19th century whitewashed cottages,
the fascinating hands-on exhibition about traditional building techniques, historic
gardens and farm livestock. In addition to the buildings the Museum takes a special
interest in nurturing rural skills and countryside crafts, growing thatching straw,
producing hazel spars for thatching, milling flour, maintaining coppice woodland and
marketing underwood products. Delicious food is provided by the café next to the millpond
and there is a well-stocked museum shop with books on countryside and buildings themes.
Find out more about the Museum by visiting its website on www.wealddown.co.uk.
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