Golden Advice for Budding Pilots

Thinking about conducting your own school-museum residency pilot? Laura, class teacher (pictured right), and Russell, head teacher (pictured left), from St Thomas Primary School in Swansea, took part in one of the first pilots between their reception class and the National Waterfront Museum, and both would encourage you to look past the challenges and go for it!

The pilot’s positive impacts

Class teacher, Laura saw first-hand the positive personal and academic impacts the museum residency had on the pupils. The pupils were really able to gain a lot from being in the museum environment itself, and they also grew closer as a class due to the reliance on each other in the brand-new setting. The interactions with museum staff and visitors helped the pupils to develop further, learning through the adults’ specialist knowledge and growing in confidence around unfamiliar adults. All of these positive impacts have led Laura to become a firm advocate of the project and of museum-school residencies.

Like Laura, Russell is also an enthusiast about pilot participation, and he feels that it’s a calculated risk that is absolutely worth taking as the children will get a lot out of it. He believes a key thing to remember when starting to plan a pilot, is that although there will be a number of initial potential difficulties with logistics, these are just short delays rather than immovable barriers.

The challenges overcome

Both teachers understand that there are always going to be challenges and wrinkles to iron out. In this case, one was to ensure all parents and faculty were on board an d excited about this pioneering pilot. Some of the parents were nervous at the start of the planning process about any potential negative impacts the out-of-classroom experience might have on the children’s learning. Russell stresses how important it is to make sure all of the parents understand what a pilot involves and are supportive of it going ahead.

The prospect of facing a range of challenges at the start of the pilot process did make both Laura and Russell nervous. The pilot was an entirely new prospect to both teachers and came with a number of risks. However, after weighing them up against potential benefits, Russell was excited to take part and saw it as a great opportunity for the school. Being a part of the pilot has enabled both teachers to easily see what a positive difference it has made to the children, and to see how much the children have enjoyed being a part of it.

The powerful end result

Russell is confident that the end result of a pilot is a strong partnership in which all parties involved can benefit. As well as the school, teachers, and pupils, the museum staff are also able to benefit through the learning they will do over the course of the pilot from working with the pupils and their teachers. Russell reports that parents were also able to benefit, and that many became more closely involved with the school over the course of the pilot and deepened their understanding of their children’s learning.

“Don’t worry about the problems. There will be problems and things you would have to overcome but don’t see those as barriers. You can overcome the issues and logistics and the children will get an awful lot out of it, the staff will get an awful lot out of it.”

- Russell Dwyer

In Russell’s experience, taking part in a pilot is something really powerful for everyone involved, and the long planning and structuring process is more than worth it. Both teachers have seen just how powerful this experience can be, and want to encourage anyone thinking about taking part to just go for it, see for themselves the undeniable impacts it will have on the children, and not look back.

“Go! Go, go, go, definitely. Ensure you have the support of staff and don’t be afraid of it – embrace it and enjoy the freedom!”

- Laura Luxton