Are you interested in running a history club at school? History coordinator Becky Robertson offers some useful insight and ideas to help get you started.
Becky explains where the idea for Hazelmere Junior School’s Time Travellers Club came from:
The club came about almost by accident! I had just been given the history coordinator job and thought I would start by celebrating Colchester Castle and its reopening. I contacted the museum service to ask if they would help us with a prize or a guest judge for a competition. I ended up in touch with Caroline who said that the museum wanted to run a competition too, so she came to see me in school and we talked about connecting with the school to review the castle.
It was obvious from the start that a history club was going to be popular and it was decided that the only fair way to work out who could join was to ask the children to apply. There were over 90 applications! Once the club was up and running children worked with staff from Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service, had visits from an archaeologist, a curator, the museum’s Disability Access Group PORTAL, radio station Dream 100 and a reporter from the Gazette. They were even lucky enough to visit the castle before it re-opened to the public in 2014 as a year six pupil describes:
Going to the castle was the best though when we got to be special VIP visitors. I can’t believe that we got to go in before everybody else.
Some children wrote an article that was printed in the Gazette and also set up mini-museums in school. The club has gone on to lead assemblies and services at school, this year arranging the whole of the Remembrance Day service themselves including singing Flanders Fields as a choir.
Becky feels that that the club has made a difference to everyone’s engagement with museums and history. Parents were enthusiastic to find out more about what the children had been doing and took them to the castle to find out, so that whereas in the first year only a handful of children had previously visited the castle, when the club started again this year over half the school had visited outside of school time. There is a real buzz around the club with several children coming into school on the first day in September asking when the club was starting again:
“Time Travellers was the best club I have ever been in, I really hope that I get in again next year. It would make me so happy I think I would burst.”
It has also given children ideas about their future careers – “after meeting Katie I would really like to be an archaeologist” said one year 6 child – and there have also been opportunities to develop and practice some new skills working with club visitors – “I loved it when we met Dom from Dream 100 and learnt how to interview people”.
Becky has shared her four top tips for setting up a club:
1. Don’t be afraid to approach the museum service for help: Museums are full of really enthusiastic historians who are often willing to give up some time to share the enthusiasm with children. We recently went to the ‘Horrible Histories Barmy Britain Tour’ in Chelmsford – not only did the actors of the show put on a special after performance session with the children for free because they had heard of the club, the Chelmsford Regiment Museum also agreed to give the Time Travellers a free handling session with the curator.
2. Make use of the rest of the school staff and your Governors: Our school really supported the Time Travellers. The ICT club helped to create The Time Machine section on our school website and helped the Time Travellers by showing them how to update it. The Governors were also really helpful. The history governor came to EVERY club session which was great for an extra pair of hands, and they were then also more keen to boost the club with some funding this year.
3. Consider a mixed age range: We found that having a mixed age range was great. The children from years 3 through to 6 worked really well together. We also had a particularly quiet year 3 join who by the end of the year was chatting away with the rest of the group and was so fantastic in the performance that we put on at the end of the year that her parents (and her class teacher) were stunned!
4. BIG it up to the rest of the school: make the club sound so amazing and so exciting that the children really believe that they are part of something really special. I found the children worked so hard and their growing confidence and self esteem really showed. We have a display board dedicated to Time Travellers, a section of the website The Time Machine which is maintained by the children and we put on an end of year show about the time in history we are covering.
The Time Travellers Club continues with Becky hoping to link up with other schools to cooperate and share resources.
Essex history thinkspace 