Craigowl Primary School Museum Project
Earlier this year, Craigowl Primary School participated in a museum project – delivered via a partnership between Craigowl Primary School, HMS Unicorn, Museum Galleries Scotland and Developing the Young Workforce. Developing the Young Workforce Dundee and Angus assisted in the project by allocating funding towards the production of the booklets.
The aim of the project was to highlight the exciting, varied roles behind the scenes in museums and give the pupils a flavour of the practical skills required for these jobs. The young people were also challenged with bringing interesting stories from HMS Unicorn’s past to life, by designing activity books for different visiting school groups.
Most of the
pupils who attend Craigowl Primary School live in the Ardler and St Marys districts of Dundee. These areas are recognised to be in the 10% most deprived areas in in the Scotland where many children and families live in poverty and often have very limited resources and there are high levels of unemployment. A further aim therefore of the project was to give the children involved an opportunity to engage with an employment sector that they may have a limited exposure and access to.
In total 29 pupils were involved from the P7B class at Craigowl Primary School in Dundee, and two booklets were produced – one aimed at P1-4 on Life in the Georgian Navy, and the other aimed at P5-7 on HMS Unicorn – History and Design.
The project entailed a class visit to HMS Unicorn to discover information about the ship and its stories, as well as to have discussions on the design brief for activity books. The children were then split into two groups, with subgroups in Research, Design and Promotion. After the initial session on the ship, the pupils carried out the work back at their school over another six sessions on a weekly basis. Following this the pupils created a presentation based around the work they did for the project. The presentation included what went well and what they found challenging, the new skills they learned and a guide through the newly designed activity books.
The number of different parts to the project and tasks that needed to be completed meant that the children gained a greater number of transferrable employment skills that will be useful for their future careers, including careers in heritage. In the end, a majority of the pupils thought that they had improved to their transferable skills to some extent. The skills improved included; adaptability, design, listening, marketing, problem solving, research, teamwork, time management and working independently. In addition to this, the pupils gained a far greater knowledge of the type of work that happens ‘behind the scenes’ at museums.
The booklets have now since been printed and are available for school groups to use on board HMS Unicorn.
“HMS Unicorn loved having the opportunity to work with Developing the Young Workforce, Museums Galleries Scotland and Craigowl Primary School on this fantastic project. We were impressed by the passion, creativity and hard work from the P7B pupils and the activity book they created for groups visiting our museum.”
– Caroline Taylor, HMS Unicorn Volunteering, Engagement and Learning Officer
“It was a huge amount of work, but the children got a great sense of achievement and pride with the completed work.”
– Rachel Mcwalter, Craigowl Primary School P7B Class Teacher