Stepping into history: how I moved my class to a museum for a term

Like most teachers, Stephanie Christie is used to teaching in a modern classroom, filled with all the latest technology. But last year, she collaborated with museum staff at a nearby historic site, Arbeia Fort, moving her pupils into an old Victorian classroom. She spoke to us about the experience.

Back to basics

The idea came from King’s College London. It was running a scheme where schools partnered up with local museums. And because our school is right over the road from Arbeia Fort, we were perfect for it. I thought it was a good idea to see if we could try to use it as a classroom.

It’s an original site and is quite big. In the main part of the fort, you can climb up and go over a bridge. There’s a Victorian classroom, where we were based, and we turned that into our own space.

When I first walked in, it was a bit daunting. It’s going out of your comfort zone completely. I was used to our modern classroom with things like interactive whiteboards. But there was no technology; it was very back to basics.

The key was to think of creative ways to deal with it. It just had blank walls, for example, so we put up all the kids’ artwork and bits of their work. They called it their second classroom.

We were there every day for a whole term. We did all the lessons that we would normally have – but we incorporated what we could from the museum. Sometimes we could have full lessons out on the site. In maths, for instance, we did activities outside with shape.

Covering the curriculum

The museum staff were really helpful. Every week they gave us a workshop that we could do with the children, using expertise of the site that I didn’t have.

We said from the outset that it can’t all just be about history. We had to cover the curriculum, so we included lots of other subjects. We did Roman numerals, and the staff turned it into an activity with a Roman numeral trail across the fort. Another time we did a slavery workshop – the children had six different activities set up where they were the Roman slaves for the fort.

We used the fort as a stimulus. It had a big impact on the kids, especially with activities like writing. One time we had an archaeology workshop on the site and we got the children to write a diary, as if they were archaeologists. There was so much more detail in the writing and the language they were using was much more advanced than usual. They were picking so much up from being in a different space, surrounded by its history.

Making it their own

They really did take ownership of the fort. At the end, we invited parents and the public to come over. The kids organised a tour, prepared all the information and wrote a script. Then they took groups around, showing them what they’d been doing for the term.

Not many of the children had been before, even though it’s across the road from our school. They knew what it was, but they’d never really thought about it. When we did the tours at the end, we found that loads of the people who came had also never been before. I think being shown around by the children opened their eyes to it and stopped them from taking it for granted.

By the end of term, the children had so much enthusiasm for the fort. They saw it as their own, and I’m sure if they go again in the future they’ll still be able to tell their friends about the things they learned during the term.

The logistics

It was a lot of work, but it was really beneficial for everyone involved. There was a lot of planning required and we had to think about whether it was suitable for us to be there, and how many staff would be needed to make it a success. We had a lot of meetings to build up a picture of how it would work in practice and what the logistics would be.

I would definitely recommend this type of approach to other teachers. I think even a half-term would be perfect – the children would get so much from it.

Stephanie Christie is a teacher at Hadrian Primary School in South Shields

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