In Conversation with: Ruth Boley and Martha Holder

22 November 2022

This is a conversation between Royal Museums Greenwich’s Senior Learning Manager, Ruth Boley and Mulgrave Primary School’s Headteacher, Martha Holder who share their experiences in a candid conversation exploring opportunities for long-term, deeper engagement between the cultural sector and schools. In 2020 they began a one-year partnership and here they share reflections on this collaboration.

Can you explain how this collaboration started?

Ruth: The first thing to say is, this was a bit of an experiment…

Martha: Yes, but it does feel like we have been working with each other forever, which is good!

Ruth: We came up with this idea, after the COVID-19 pandemic, as [RMG] wanted to reconnect with schools, understand schools and think about what your new priorities were coming out of COVID, so we thought we’d like to partner with a school, and we had worked with Mulgrave throughout lockdown.

Martha: On the banner, yes. We did the beautiful banner.

Ruth: BLKBRD collective was working with us during lockdown, and then we created banners for the reopening of our sites and worked with different community groups to reflect on COVID-19 experiences and the experiences of 2020 generally. And you had some workshops at the school didn’t you with BLKBRD?

Martha: We did, I didn’t know about them [before] but they’re a group of artists who’ve done quite major work. This was all following the death of George Floyd and this came around as part of that. In Greenwich, there was Black Lives Matter marked out on paving and the community were really vocal about that and we were able to work with BLKBRD.

The children devised a carnival banner. Our year four pupils at the time worked with the artists and taught them all about carnival. They were lots of visuals and lots of music for the children. It was really sensory, it wasn't just about sitting down and being told about carnival. It was so children can understand what carnival was about, where it was celebrated and then the children produced the beautiful artwork. It was put together by the artists, so the banner is one of the first things you see and it makes you smile. It was about celebrating diversity and when you think of that catalyst Ruth, it's really poignant.

Ruth: It's kind of a historic moment in time that we worked together. In the following academic year, we formed the partnership and formalised it a little bit more, but we looked at how we could work together more strategically across the year. We shared what our aims were on each side and how we could collaborate and talked about what possible projects we could collaborate on.

In your opinion, what were some highlights that Royal Museums Greenwich and Mulgrave benefited from this collaboration together?

Ruth: From the museum's point of view, for us, it was really great to get that insight into how the school was operating at that time and what your priorities were coming out of COVID. How you planned as [a group of] teachers, how different teachers planned which was great. We supported Avril, the History Lead on some of her planning in terms of local history and embedding local history into the curriculum and how you plan your curriculum.

Another benefit was the ability to get an insight into family - families and the community. Obviously, schools are more than just learning institutions they’re like community hubs and it was great to get an idea of how you are an integral part of your community and how you support the family unit, not just the children who come but the family units who are the community of that school – so it was great to get that insight into local families through working with you.

We had, almost like a mini consultation with a group of families that you put us in touch with talking about some of the barriers that they had around our institution, around our buildings. It was powerful to get that insight into local families and the perceptions of our buildings and of our institutions. Learning what we can do to help break down some of those barriers, as well. There was a great conversation that happened in that group with parents around the perception of Greenwich and Maritime Greenwich, as being a tourist destination and not really for local people, and that it's an expensive day out – there was just so much there for us on learning in terms of how we support local families to feel like this is a place for them.

Martha: One of the things that we do say as a school is, whether our parents are able to take the children or not, it's down to us to make sure that they're immersed in that cultural richness that's around them – and beyond where they live. It's not about blaming parents or anything like that. We just wanted to get a group of parents who go regularly to museums and groups of parents that have never been and there was a big stance in terms of diversity. White middle-class, parents were taking their children to the museums a lot more than our parents from different cultural backgrounds. When we talk about our children being confident it’s about that cultural capital, but museums, institutions and all this history must reflect the community.

One of the beautiful things that the National Maritime did was the golden ticket. I heard that some children's families are still accessing it, Ruth can you explain it?

Ruth: That group of parents that you put us in touch with was part of the research for the golden ticket and it was trailing our Cutty Sark site, which is a paid site, giving each school child when they come with their school, a golden ticket to return another time for free with their family (at least one adult). We didn't have as many returns as we thought we might but it was still a really useful exercise to do and a great opportunity. What was useful was to see that it’s not just the invitation you need, it's actually thinking about the whole experience and what is around your site and on your site and outside your site.

Martha: There was a workshop for our SEND children which our parents attended, remember that one?

Ruth: Yeah, that was another bit of consultation. That we did with our Family’s team, who were setting up a sensory family network and they wanted to try out some ideas with some local families, so they came to Mulgrave and did some activities using clay and made some beautiful sculptures.

Tell us where you saw change/impact in the pupils and/or staff at the school and the museum.

There’s so many amazing things that have come out of our partnership, our children sang on Windrush day (22 June) to lots of different people including some of the Windrush generation who are really elderly. Our school choir has performed twice at the museum. They've trained with Ethno Vox, with Cecilia who has come in and worked with children in the class to learn the songs and they've performed in front of a live audience in the colonnades which is beautiful – and the children literally feel like they own it! They’ve done projects at the Queen’s House which is amazing, there’s a beautiful mosaic floor and it’s based on symmetry and there was a maths project our children done with our Maths leader Vicki with the National Maritime Museum. The children have created a nature trail, and they’ve done figureheads – there’s so many amazing things that our children have experienced with the National Maritime Museum.

I would encourage this for all schools. We know our children are going to grow up and say they used to go to the National Maritime Museum, yeah, we used to go on the Cutty Sark. These are living memories that we’re creating for our children and it’s really important that they feel competent in these spaces, so it’s a win-win really.

Ruth: There was multiple points of connection that we had [with the school], for example, we worked with Avril [history lead] on one strand, and we worked directly with the schoolteachers for developing the creative response to the figureheads. It was it was great to have that initial point of contact with you and for you to have that leadership with the rest of the team, but then it was really nice that once the ball got rolling we had different kinds of irons in the fire, so to speak. We could go directly to the person that was involved in that little strand and they responded just as much as you would have because they had that freedom from you, to feel they can devote their time to this or yes this is something important for the children.

Martha: I think the CPD was integral, having that inset and really invested in what we wanted for our children and parents, teachers what they wanted to experience was an integral part of it as well.

Getting everyone out into the spaces, I'd say to anyone during the visit, you've got to go and see what it's like before you take the children and I think sometimes we take it for granted. You've got to go in and experiences spaces for yourself before taking the children so that you know where you're taking them, what you want to show them and that's about that forward planning. It’s also about being open, we were able to use the expertise of the museum to look at our curriculum, and it's something that we're looking at decolonising our curriculum. It’s adding richness to the curriculum, children can recognise themselves and see themselves in positive way and acknowledge what happened during history.

What were some of the results of your partnership?

Martha: We have a real connection to the National Maritime Museum as a school and our teachers are confident to ring and speak to staff to let them know when our children are coming down. It's all about the relationship. Before our children had been to the National Maritime Museum but I wouldn’t have been able to name anybody who works at the museum. I wouldn't have known that they actually do. I know that they do workshops, we see on the website, but I wouldn't be able to say what they were like or think about our children really being able to be confident in these spaces.

Part of this partnership has meant that we've been able to be to experience all of this so we've experienced what the children have experienced, what it's like to perform to a live audience as part of Windrush Day and it's something that we celebrate as a school. You know, we share that information with our parents. It's not done as a tokenistic one-off.

Ruth: And what's been great from our point of view is to have you Martha, that advocate amongst the school's community for shouting about what you can do at a museum and it's not, history sessions there's lots of possibilities, creative possibilities that you can explore through visiting a museum and it's not just about history, it's about literacy, it's about maths, is there's loads of that cross curricular enrichment and that ownership of a cultural space, which is really important, and it was great!

It's really important to have schools visible in our public programme to showcase the work that schools do to that wider audience because it's motivating for them to have that public platform to share, their work and to share their thinking. It’s also important because it brings in new audiences. A lot of people might not necessarily come to the museum unless a member of their family or their child is performing or has some work on display at the museum. That's the only reason that they will come but hopefully, once they come they might see something else or you know, pick up a leaflet or you know, talk to somebody - that thing that makes them think well actually, yeah, maybe I'll come back another day and see that thing or, you know, there's other aspects that I had never been aware of before.

Do you have any advice that you would like to share with any arts and cultural organisations / school who want to work in this way?

Martha: It helps if you have someone in SLT or a Leadership position. I'm passionate about museums and about spaces and giving our children experiences that they will remember. You need somebody who's passionate and enthusiastic, so there should be one person that is your point of reference.