Name:

Victoria

Programme of study:

Museum Studies (MA) 2016-2017 Academic Year

Career/ Sector interests:

Before deciding to go into museums, I studied to be a special education teacher. The classroom setting isn’t for me, but I am interested in museum learning and education, and looked for a placement that would allow me to work in the learning department of a museum. My interest in accessibility and special education also led me to look at museums’ accessibility offers, resources, and policies when deciding on placement preferences.

Placement venue:

Seven Stories

Placement duration (30 or 12 days):

30 days

What type of activities did you undertake whilst you were on placement?

The initial plan was for me to work on an evaluation framework for the Readers in Residence programme Seven Stories offers to schools; this data didn’t come through until the 5th week of my placement, so I had the opportunity to get involved in lots of different projects as well. I attended CPD sessions for teachers in delivering the 'Hooks Into Books' programme, saw how teachers use the books in those packs and what creative things they and their students do with the books. We were in the process of selecting books for the newest 'Hooks Into Books' packs, so I read and reviewed those and participated in the selection meeting. I learned a lot about not only the accessible options, events, and resources Seven Stories has, but also the rationale behind them and the organisation’s dedication to accessibility. I sat in on some school sessions delivered in the museum and organised feedback from the Storycatchers to provide evaluation for the current school session offers. I researched and wrote short abstract biographies for an upcoming conference on diversity in children’s literature. Overall there was a lot of practical work, opportunities for hands-on involvement in events in and out of the museum, and lots of spreadsheets. It was a kind of crash course in every different sort of thing the learning team does.

What were your placement highlights?

Meeting the author Vivian French was pretty exciting! She was the speaker at one of the CPD events I attended. My favourite days were spent sitting in on school sessions in the museum. I loved seeing how the museum handles the challenges of making a school’s museum visit interesting and exciting to every student, and hearing the main messages the Storycatchers taught. Of all the work I did with the learning team, this was the one that had the most immediately visible results, and it was really interesting to see how the students received their school visit and what they seemed to enjoy and learn.

Student Name:

Samantha Dunning

Programme of Study:

Museum Studies (MA) 2016 -2017 Academic Year

Career/ Sector Interests:

When it comes to working in a museum, I’m mostly interested in collections and curating.  My undergraduate degree was in Anthropology, so I would love to work in a museum dealing with human history and material culture. 

Placement Venue:

Seven Stories

Placement Duration (30 or 12 days):

30 days June – July 2017

What type of activities did you undertake whilst you were on placement?

I joined Seven Stories when they were preparing for the installation of the new exhibition.  Though this placement would usually be archival experience, I was able to do much more.  I did work with a new archive acquisition (Pamela Whitlock Archive): researching, sorting, numbering, data entry, repackaging, etc. 

I also had the opportunity to help them with their new exhibition.  I worked on framing with the conservator, learning the safer ways to ways to display these works.  I also helped the curators with some additions to the exhibition, like creating facsimiles of older, more delicate comics that visitors could hold and read in the exhibition. 

I was there for the de-installation of an exhibition to be sent on tour, so I assisted in the condition checking of that exhibition.  I also helped with the installation of the new incoming exhibition. 

What were your placement highlights?

I found myself enjoying all of it.  I guess I enjoyed working with the conservator the most.  It was fun hiding in the archive, helping her with the frames.  Seeing everything she does makes me want to learn more about conservation. 

Putting up the new exhibition was also a highlight, seeing everyone’s hard work turn into something fantastic. 

It was also fun looking at the original illustrations for The Far-Distant Oxus, in the Pamela Whitlock archive.