March’s early years network meeting was hosted at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey, and hosted by the Learning & Visitor Services Team comprising Virginia Smith, Head of Learning and Visitor Services, Olivia French, Learning Officer, and Tamsin Birch, Visitor Services Assistant.
Thank you to those who made the trek out of London, who included early years educators from the Museum of London Docklands, The Geffrye Museum, The National Archives and The Postal Museum.
The theme of the session was “A Flying Start: Foundation Stage and Under-5s Sessions with a STEM flavour”.
Tamsin led the session taking attendees through the history and background of Brooklands Museum and responsibilities of the Learning & Visitor Services Team in that context. These include the Schools and Families programmes. The remainder of the session focused on Brooklands Museum’s “Mini Aces” monthly sessions for Under 5s, which Tamsin develops and facilitates with the support of other museum staff. Olivia mostly handles bookings and marketing of this activity, the latter via social media and emails.
Tamsin explained the origins of the Mini Aces programme, which started in January 2016 as part of the Activities Plan for the Aircraft Factory and Race Track Restoration Project, funded by HLF, Surrey County Council and other donors. Tamsin, Olivia and Virginia talked through the funding and financial logistics of running the sessions. For instance. the Museum charges £2 per child per session, but adults must also pay for Museum entry, which presents some challenges, as does the location of the Museum and public transport facilities. Repeat attendees are encouraged to buy annual Museum membership as this is more cost effective.
After the introduction, Tamsin, Olivia and Virginia led a hands-on breakout session giving attendees an opportunity to explore two of the most recent Mini Aces activities delivered, as follows:
- Brilliant Builders – challenges included hammering “nails” (golf tees) into florist foam blocks and building the tallest/widest tower from paper, plastic cups and bowls. Children also made tool boxes from card lunch boxes and coloured in printed card tools. We provided them with thin plastic yellow hard hats sourced cheaply from Amazon.
- Super Scientists – an “experiment” using pipettes to drop white vinegar (coloured with food colouring) into bicarbonate of soda and watch what happens – it fizzes up! What happens when you mix yellow and blue vinegar? – It turns green and fizzes up! We provided children with disposable lab coats and safety goggles so that they looked the part.
After the breakout session, there was a facilitated a group discussion about methods of evaluating sessions involving young children. For Mini Aces, the Brooklands Museum team begun to use happy/sad emoji-style stickers and asked the children to choose one at the end of each session. The first time this was done, the “happy” stickers were yellow and the “sad” ones were red. It was noted that several children chose the red stickers and when asked why, it became clear that it was based on their preference for the colour red. The team has since started using emoji stickers that are the same colour with different outcomes now being recorded. The other attendees suggested having a range of laminated emojis to choose from (perhaps with Velcro to stick on a board) rather than just the two options.
Victoria told the group about evaluation at the Museum of London, which has taken the form of focus groups. In shorter sessions, regular attendees have been interviewed whilst children are looked after/entertained by another staff member. They have also held longer feedback sessions with families, in return for Amazon vouchers given as thanks, that resulted in a more comprehensive feedback opportunity.
At the end of the session, attendees were given an opportunity to look at some of the other materials and objects being used by the team at Brooklands Museum to support their sessions.
Written by Tamsin Birch, Brooklands Museum
early years network 