Regen EM

ERS was commissioned by Renaissance East Midlands for the planning and delivery of a consultation exercise with teachers, children and young people to inform the development and delivery of the Renaissance East Midlands Business Plan 2008-2010.

The findings of the exercise have provided an evidence base to:

• Prioritise the development of museum learning services across the East Midlands to create a comprehensive museum service for children and young people;

• Outline the role of museums in delivering these priorities; and

• Identify the needs which are not currently being met in order to increase the use of museums by schools, children and young people.

ERS designed a detailed survey for distribution to all schools in the East Midlands (over 2,000), supported by follow up telephone interviews with Head Teachers. This enabled capture of any evidence of change in perception from a previous survey carried out in 2003, in addition to looking towards the future in terms of teaching priorities and use of ICT across the curriculum.

A set of face to face consultations were delivered in primary and secondary schools as well as youth groups across the East Midlands. These were designed to be participatory and game-based and were supplemented by an age-appropriate survey distributed to 1,000 children and young people across the region. These methods enabled a description of experiences of museum visits, preferred learning styles and techniques and suggested improvements to provision.

ERS Contact: vpagan@ers.org.uk