MUSEUM EDUCATION

Education can be fun and it most certainly is when you come to the Royal Signals Museum. We offer a unique opportunity for pupils to study away from the school classroom. At the heart of a working Military base, a visit gives children an insight into an environment they are unlikely to get at any other time, and provides a real context for their studies.
 

Our programme of handling sessions and accompanying activity sheets is set within the Museum, and combats the traditional concept of the Museum visit as History, English or Art based.

OUR NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOCUS
 

The formal programmes currently cover two principal areas of the National Curriculum under Sc4 Physical Processes. - 'Light' and 'Electricity & Magnetism'. The activity sheets have been tailored closely to the QCA guidelines for these units. The programme is tiered, with Activity Sheets and guided Handling Sessions appropriate to the age range or ability of your pupils, as outlined below.
 

There are smaller group activities within the class sessions that provide opportunities for children of mixed ability to work together, or for teachers and our staff to give attention to advanced or less able pupils.


 

WE SUPPORT THE LIGHT CURRICULUM
 

We use the Shutter Telegraph System, signalling by lamp, periscopes and the heliograph as our equipment bases for teaching the basics of the light curriculum.

The Activity Sheets require the pupils to examine these equipments in the Museum and draw deductions about how they work and how they were used.  To achieve this will involve a wide range of skills and their learning will necessarily venture outside the science curriculum. 

The Handling Sessions are practical sessions dealing with mirrors, lens and light rays with the purpose of defining how the above military equipment was designed.


 

WE OFFER OTHER SUPPORT
 

The Museum's Collection also offers links to History, Technology, Numeracy, Communications and Art.  Indeed, even during the science sessions pupils will learn communications skills, history, spelling, numeracy and reading.

We will work closely with you if you wish to arrange a visit to meet other elements of the National Curriculum.  We will even devise work sheets to meet your needs.  Usually, this will require you to visit the Museum beforehand.