Ask the Expert Q&A, 1 December: Working with under 5’s in Museums by Humber Museum Partnership
Learning Officers from Humberside Museum Partnership will be answering your questions on Working with Under 5s on Tuesday 1 December between 2-3pm GMT.
The Humber Museum Partnership includes the Museum Services of Hull, North Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. The consortium is funded by the Arts Council of England as a Major Partnership Museum until March 2018.
The Humber Museums Partnership is leading the Arts Councils Major Partnership Museums in improving the visitor experience for families and under-fives. We do not see ourselves as experts in working with under-fives, but we are using this opportunity to understand this audience and make improvements to the visitor experience. Family visitors make up over a staggering 40% of the existing visitors at some Humber Museums Partnership sites. They are an incredibly important audience for museums and have the potential to increase visitor numbers and repeat visits.
Each Museum Service has a dedicated Learning Officer to work with families with under-fives for the duration of the project. Esther Hallberg is based at Hull, Rosalind Macaulay at North Lincolnshire and Christine Rostron at East Riding. Their role is to engage with families with under-fives and increase opportunities for participation at events and activities at the different Humber Museum Partnership venues. The Learning Officers are developing long term partnerships with local Early Years providers and consulting directly with local families. They are trialling new events and activities alongside local families to increase opportunities for children under five.
The Humber Museum Partnership includes a range of unique venues and collections which will be utilised throughout the project. The three regions of the Humber are very different with their own individual community needs. Each Learning Officer is working on different priorities and projects within their own Museum Service area. They will be developing individual projects and case studies which they will share with other partners.
There are already a lot of venues regionally and nationally that are already providing excellent opportunities for families with children under-five. The Learning Officers are just starting to explore what is already happening locally, regionally and nationally and building on this current best practice. They have just started working with University Of Sheffield Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth to explore ways to capture this best practice and use it within their own projects.
The Humber Museum Partnership is really keen to share any knowledge and best practice we are gathering throughout the three year project with the Museum Sector. This ensures that the project is wider than just the Partnership and can benefit more families with under-fives. As the project has only just started, we do not have all the answers and are not experts on under-fives. However, we are keen to share what we have learnt already and build partnerships with other organisations.
The Humber Museum Partnership is also providing opportunities for Independent Museums to apply for grants throughout the three year project. These grants will enable Independent Museums to embrace the knowledge shared by the Learning Officers and embed this within their own organisations.
Learning Officers from Humberside Museum Partnership will be answering your questions on Working with Under 5s on Tuesday 1 December between 2-3pm GMT.
You can post questions before the Q & A session, on 1 December , or you can converse in real time with our experts. You can use the comment box below to post a question, or you can use twitter with the hashtag #mdyask.
Comments have to be moderated, to protect the blog from spam, so if your comment doesn’t appear straight away, don’t worry, we’ll get to it as quickly as we can.
If you have a problem submitting questions, either in the comment box, or via twitter, please email your questions to gillian.waters@ymt.org.uk
If you have ideas for subjects you’d like to see us cover in future, or would like to take questions yourself, please get in contact with us and let us know.
Your Comments
Marette Hickford |
Having experience of primary-school children, when do you start to see children under 5 years start to ‘do stuff’ and what have you learnt about balancing these activities against the expectations and worries of parents? What are parents worries about the activities provided? Have your activities been seen as too difficult or too easy? Or too like what parents do at home?
Gillian Waters |
Sarah Shaw asks #MDYask “I’d love to ask about experiences people have of integrating family interpretation into exhibition spaces. I know lots of people now do family areas which a separate but I’m mainly interested in examples of integrated approaches that suit multiple needs.”
Gillian Waters |
Sarah Spurrier @smspurrier asks #MDYask “Can all museums cater for 0-5yrs or are some collections fundamentally too prohibitive? “
Rachel Wade |
Are there ways in which museums and galleries can help engage families with young children without them actually having to visit the sites? It’s often difficult for parents to reach places, but would be great to get their families involved in collections from a young age for future visits when they are older.
Chris evans |
Would love to know more about smaller museums doing regular toddler activities – challenging to sustain regular small activities with tight resources. What can be done on a regular basis without dedicated staff.
Rosalind Macaulay |
Hi Marette,
Thanks for your questions. We think that children ‘do stuff’ from birth as they begin to engage with the world around them through their senses. The EYFS framework would be a good point of reference because it gives developmental milestones and an idea of what babies and young children can do. So far in the project we haven’t encountered any real worries from visiting parents but consultation with non users has shown that some parents choose not to visit because they think there is nothing for their child at a museum and it won’t be an age appropriate environment. This is something we are addressing though outreach activities and marketing to change the perception of parents.
We have found that approaching under 5s activities at our sites in an open ended and child led way; much like you would find in an Early Years setting has meant that families can find their own level of activity using the resources provided. Learning at this age is about play, exploring and experiencing rather than a task or right answer.
We think if there are similarities with activities parents do at home that this can be a good thing as familiarity helps children to feel comfortable to engage in a new setting and consolidate skills. Parents come to our sites for a variety of reasons including meeting other families.
Rosalind, Esther & Christine
Laura Claveria |
Do you have any suggestions in terms of what times work best to organise family activities (e.g. Saturday morning)? In your experience, what activities have a higher turnout: the ones run during half term/holidays or on regular weekends? Thank you very much.
Rosalind Macaulay |
Hi Sarah,
We are planning both dedicated spaces for families and integrated activities across the project in consultation with partners and families. There is definitely no one way of approaching this but examples could include; sensory boards, role play activities and dressing up (making sure this includes sizes for under 5s and adults) or treasure baskets which can all link to collections. Differentiated trails of things to spot or exploring resources like torches and binoculars can work for different ages too.
Small changes can make a big difference!
Rosalind, Esther & Christine
Gillian Waters |
@NLWallis says V little children will eat everything! Just exploring. Non toxic resources vital for art activities.
Gillian Waters |
@NLWallis says #mdyask “We find morning better 4 toddlers who sleep after lunch.Afternoon better for babies.”
Gillian Waters |
Nicky Wallis @NLWallis asks “Yes, but do we have a shared understanding of “play” in a museum context?” #mdyask
Gillian Waters |
Nicky Wallis @NLWallis says #mdyask “v imp for each museum to tailor work to its own context-no 1size fits all approach”
Rosalind Macaulay |
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for your question.
There are collections that can be more easily interpreted for under 5s than others especially if they relate to children’s own experiences for example toys, nature and the home.
However thinking about one of our sites as an example, William Wilberforce House in Hull, some objects in the collection are certainly problematic because of how we understand them as adults but the site itself is interesting to work with as a historic house. Exploring any space can be a great sensory learning experience for example looking at shapes and scale.
Rosalind, Esther & Christine
Rosalind Macaulay |
Hi Rachel,
Thanks for your question.
We have seen some great digital resources that other museums have created which allow families to engage without actually visiting. We like the resources on The Tate website.
We have all been starting to take objects and activities out to Early Years settings like Children’s Centres and Nurseries. This means that families who find it difficult to visit can experience something from the museums. This is already helping us to build relationships and challenge preconceptions about museums. We hope that some of these families will become museum visitors.
Rosalind, Esther & Christine
Gillian Waters |
Nicky Wallis @NLWallis asks #mdyask “Is 0-5 a good way of grouping children? Babies are very different to 5 year olds, and many families have under and over 5s together.”
Rosalind Macaulay |
Hi Chris,
Tight resources are a problem we all face and we can imagine it’s especially hard for a small museum.
We have found a few things so far in the project: some parents are happy to pay for sessions which can help with resources costs, sessions don’t have to be weekly, working with partners who can use your site as a venue for sessions can work and using volunteers to deliver sessions is planned too.
Rosalind, Esther & Christine
Rosalind Macaulay |
Under 5s includes a huge range of ages and stages which we have begun to break down into 4 age groups to inform our work; new-born, baby, toddler and preschool.
This also fits with the care pathway identified by our local children’s centres.
Some activities will be targeted at one of these sub groups and others will be more general and open ended. We are also interested in working with expectant mothers and their families as prenatal care is important in terms of early intervention strategies.
Rosalind, Esther & Christine
Gillian Waters |
To view the conversation on Twitter about Museums and the Under 5s click on this storify link
https://storify.com/Gillian_Waters/working-with-under-5s-in-museums-mdyask