Pupils bringing history alive through school’s partnership with museum

Barry Island Primary School is in the town of Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan.  There are 243 pupils on roll, aged from 3 to 11.  This includes 35 part-time nursery pupils.  The school has nine classes.  The average percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals over the last three years is around 14%, which is below the national average of 18%.  The school identifies around 16% of pupils as having special educational needs.  This is below the national average of 21%.  Most pupils are of white British ethnicity and no pupil speaks Welsh at home.   A few pupils have English as an additional language. 

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

Barry Island Primary School has a clear vision to promote and plan exciting learning opportunities linked to a real life, authentic context.  As a Professional Learning Pioneer School with the Welsh Government, the school identified an opportunity to facilitate effective curriculum development through working in partnership with St Fagans Museum of Welsh History.  The school initially focused on the ‘Professional Standards for Teaching and Leadership’ model and its overarching values to drive the design of an innovative curriculum that embeds the four purposes of the new curriculum for Wales through inspiring blended learning experiences.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

Through self-evaluation against the Professional Standards as a starting point, the school identified areas of development for the teaching team.  Staff professional development was carefully planned and timetabled.  This enabled them to gain a deeper understanding of the model and to plan a holistic approach aimed at securing the best outcomes for learners.

The leadership team established an effective working partnership with St Fagans, the National Museum of History, to trial elements of the new curriculum.  The project, ‘Welsh Heritage – Capturing a moment in time,’ involved the successful collaboration of both organisations, immersing pupils in the new mathematics and humanities areas of learning experiences (AoLEs) of the new curriculum for Wales.

Classes were allocated a location at the site and a period in history to explore.  The teaching team collaboratively developed a new planning template designed to embed the four purposes of the new curriculum and track progression against the new curriculum’s ‘What Matters’ draft statements for the humanities and mathematics areas of learning experiences (AoLEs).

Planned lessons were conducted over a half term and time allocated for learners to carry out several site visits to gather information and create digital resources, such as using QR codes and ICT to develop visitor information fact files for each location.  Learners were challenged to script and create a factual documentary film about their location to focus on historical and literacy based skills.  Planned cross-curricular lessons challenged pupils to apply knowledge and skills in a real life historical setting and allowed them to lead their own learning with greater independence.  The St Fagans’ team were engaged in school visits ‘in costume,’ to support the four purposes and help to build authentic learning experiences.

Learners were provided opportunities to express their learning innovatively and the school held a celebration event to showcase the pupils’ work and demonstrate their skills development.  At the St Fagans site, the pupils’ historical documentary films were played on an outdoor cinema screen for families and other stakeholders to enjoy.  The pupils were also tasked to organise an exhibition of their work, which was held in the Oakdale Workmen’s Institute at St Fagans. 

​​ Barry Island Primary School continues to work in partnership with the Museum and has produced a blueprint for a scheme of work, which can be shared with other schools as an exemplar model of real-life, authentic contexts for learning to support the requirements of the new curriculum.  The digital resources developed by the learners have also been made available to the Museum, which can be used to enhance the visitor experience.

What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?

The project has had a positive impact on professional development across the teaching and leadership team.  It has focused the team on sustaining the conditions necessary to realise the four purposes for learners.  Detailed analysis of the Professional Standards model and the journey of self-evaluation has developed confidence amongst the staff to take risks and work collaboratively to provide sustained, highly effective blended learning experiences.  Staff have developed their reflective practice effectively to build links between the areas of learning and better facilitate progression of learning.

Learners have been given opportunities to take a more active role in leading their own learning. Lessons provided appropriate challenge to enable learners to develop resilience in solving problems.  There has been significant improvement in applying ‘digital humanities skills’ to gather, analyse, and evaluate evidence and present findings, including producing a bank of digital resources to support the scheme of work.  The celebration event had a significant impact on learner wellbeing, with pupils given opportunities to positively reflect on the high-quality of their products and performances.  The pupils’ pride in their work was clearly evident and the project has had a positive impact on increasing pupils’ engagement in their learning.

Through the assessment of pupils’ work, it was evident that they were able to draw conclusions, such as through the analysis of artefacts, maps, farming techniques and period building designs. Pupils were able to develop their own questions with increasing confidence and seek answers in a real-life context.  Thinking critically about their discoveries, key stage 2 pupils were able to establish informed conclusions and further questions for enquiry.  The impact of the project also enabled pupils to continue to demonstrate improved skills in oracy, reading and writing.  They were able to process historical information in greater depth and also respond accordingly to communicate their understanding.

How have you shared your good practice?

The pupils’ historical documentaries were shared and celebrated at a planned event at St Fagans, attended by families, local dignitaries and representatives of Welsh Government and local consortia.

The Museum hosted an exhibition of the pupils’ work to showcase the literacy and numeracy skills developed and applied through the four purposes and different areas of learning experiences. Models and pupils’ work were presented on display for visitors to the museum.

The scheme of work and supporting digital resources have been made available to the National Museum at St Fagans, who plan to make the package available to other schools who wish to use the project to develop the new curriculum in their setting.

Following the success of the project, the school initiated wider collaboration with a School Improvement Group (SIG) to explore the Mathematics AoLE, again using St Fagans as the stimulus to provide real life authentic contexts.  The collaborative work was shared internally at each of the partner schools as part of professional development and curriculum development staff training. Through evaluation, the SIG teachers found it beneficial to engage with ‘draft curriculum’ elements and to focus on elements of the Four Purposes to enthuse and motivate leaners.  The SIG project resulted in a method for teachers to support each other in effective joint planning whilst enriching opportunities for all learners.

Following the project, pupils were invited to participate in a BBC media event at the museum to share learning experiences and opinions of the coverage of Welsh Culture in the new curriculum. During this event, pupils shared ideas and the success of the project with Welsh Government representatives and experts within the field of humanities, to promote the exciting possibilities to learn about Welsh heritage and culture across Wales.