Jumping In! How to Build Successful School-Museum Partnerships

This article is written by Elizabeth Kopplin, Museum Learning Officer.

It can be scary to make new friends or join a new friend’s group. At least, that is how I felt when I started a new post in January 2017. We now have over 50 partnerships and 15 local schools we regularly work with and is currently in the development phase of a Heritage Lottery Fund project to redevelop the museum.

Being the new Learning Officer at a small museum meant introducing myself to individuals and groups who had a long history with my predecessors; I was jumping right into an existing relationship yet it was all new to me – and this was a time when maintaining relationships would be vital to the success of our project! It was intimidating, but I quickly learned that museum-school partnerships are like any friendship:

A partnership is between people - Make it personal

Schools and museums are both made up of individuals. Finding the right person to talk to is the first challenge but makes the world of difference. Teachers rarely see or respond to emails sent to admin@ or addressed to ‘teacher’ or ‘school’. It may be worth calling the school before you send an email to see if they know the right person to contact – if nothing else, they will be prepared for your email and may be more willing to push it along to the coordinator or teachers.

Top tip – teachers are human too! Don’t forget to tell them about the fun programmes and events you have for adults too. Some of our best relationships with local teachers started when they came to other events (especially if wine was served!)

Partners relate to one another – Make it mutually beneficial

Formal and informal learning are two sides of the same coin. Dedicate the time to reconnect and get back on the same page with schools. We are both working to ensure students have positive and impactful learning experiences on shoestring budgets and limited resources. I held a teacher twilight consultation to discuss what teachers want to see from our learning programme and understand the ways our current offer isn’t benefiting them or their students. Our situation is not an unusual one and it was invaluable to increase dialogue about how to get the learning programme headed in the right direction.

Top tip – offer opportunities for teachers to learn too! We discovered that some teachers struggle to teach local history because they didn’t grow up in the area or aren’t sure where to find the information. We are now developing resources and teacher taster days to help teachers be more confident in their classroom as well.

Partners don’t keep secrets – Be honest

One thing we need to be careful of is managing expectations. For us, we needed schools to know that we value the learning experiences their students have with us… but that we need to be financially conscious and increase revenue. In being honest about this, we discovered that teachers understand – after all, they are facing similar financial pressures. They are not looking for everything to be free and are willing to pay for quality learning experiences. They are willing to pay for quality learning experiences, but need a range of prices and options to fit into any budget.

Top tip – know your most important KPIs! Establish if footfall or revenue is the most important indicator of success for your museum, it is likely a bit of both and may depend on who you ask in your organisation. If you offer a range of programmes and prices that can meet any budget and withstand particularly difficult years.

I’ll end on a note on evaluation. Whatever you chose to do to build partnerships with schools - make sure you can demonstrate the impact you’ve had. Properly recording data is important and capturing the right data is crucial. Depending on capacity, this could be as simple as recording visitor figures or could involve a bit more skill such as interviewing or holding focus groups with teachers. Determine with your team and/or manager what your aims are and what benefits meeting them would bring. A former manager of mine was unfortunately right when she said, ‘Museums are really good at doing a lot of good work; what we are not so good at is demonstrating it.’