How did World War One affect the lives of
people in Britain?
A project designed and delivered by Ditton Park Academy and
Wexham School in partnership with the Maidenhead Heritage to
develop knowledge and understanding of World War One for
mixed ability Year 7 and Year 9 students.
Project report by:
Karl Fenn, Classroom Leader of History, Slough
Paulina O’Neill, Classroom Leader of Humanities, Slough
Virginia Jenner, Head of Education, Maidenhead Heritage Centre, Maidenhead
This project undertaken as part of Stronger Together, a regional partnership development project
for Museum Learning in secondary schools led by the River & Rowing Museum and The Langley
Academy
Stronger Together Project supported by a major grant from:
“Museum learning means
involving ourselves with
our rich and diverse
heritage in enriching and
transformational
experiences. Museum
learning provides
distinctive opportunities for
learning. Museum learning
can transform our lives and
should be accessible,
relevant and enjoyable to
everyone.”- Student from
Wexham School
‘This project has
enriched its
participants. It is clear
that a love of learning
was developed whilst
taking part in this
project, a love which
soon transmitted into
the classroom. The
students have
developed a series of
key skills that they can
use across the
curriculum over their
remaining time in
school. Museum
learning has allowed are students to be critical thinkers who thrive when undertaking an enquiry.
The questions they realised after each session is testament to just how much of an impact their
curiosity had on their enjoyment and engagement.’- Ditton Park Academy
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CONTENTS
1. Executive summary
2. Introduction and context
3. Planning the project
4. Delivering the project
5. Impact on students of participating in the project
6. Impact project managers of running the project
7. Impact of the project for Ditton Park Academy, Wexham School and
Maidenhead Heritage Centre
8. Conclusion and key learnings
9. Appendices
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1. Executive summary
About the project
The aim of our project was to deepen pupils’ understanding of the First World War through the use
of objects from the Maidenhead Heritage Centre. The project was delivered at Ditton Park
Academy and Wexham School. Our unit focused on a central question ‘How did the First World War
affect the lives of people in Britain?’ Both Ditton Park Academy and Wexham School visited the
Maidenhead Heritage Centre with students participating in the project to spark their curiosity. In
each lesson or extra-curricular meeting students used information and objects to answer our
central question. At the end of the unit students created a museum workshop and was assisted by
Virginia and Brian from the Maidenhead Heritage Centre. Students also wrote an evaluation to see
how much progress they had made in the unit.
Impact of the project on participants, project managers and supporting organisations
At Ditton Park Academy the average level improved way above what was expected and the
majority of the project participants are currently working above their end of year target grade, in
part as a result of their participation in this project. In addition, Year 7 students demonstrated that,
providing work is sufficiently challenging and stimulating, they can work as well independently and
collaboratively as GCSE students. The project participants frequently worked together in groups to
solve mysteries or problems. In addition, they developed their investigative skills by developing the
ability to ask questions and then discuss potential answers with peers, before going home to
independently research something. From the evaluation at Wexham School it is clear that many
students did make progress during the unit. The amount of students who are below target reduced
from 88% of the class to 63% of the class showing that many students did improve their level. I
decided to look at how many students made progress and how their progress improved from their
first assessment 38% of students improved their progress by one sublevel and 29% of students
improved their progress by two sub levels. The majority of students from Ditton Park Academy and
Wexham School responded well to the localized history of Maidenhead stating they felt a
connection to a person or place they learned about in Maidenhead through the artefacts they used.
Conclusion and key learnings
Museum learning has had a positive impact on project managers. Museum learning is a name for
good teaching practice. Museums and schools can form stronger partnerships to deliver a more
customized learning experience for pupils. It can focus on local history, which our students enjoyed.
Through stronger partnerships between schools and museums there can be newer and more
innovative ways to incorporate museum learning that doesn’t involve a traditional class trip. It can
involve museum visits to the schools and loan boxes of artefacts to improve student engagement.
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2. Introduction and context
About the Stronger Together project
“How did the First World War affect the lives of people in Britain?” was part of a wider regional
project to enable museums and schools to collaborate in developing and delivering museum
learning partnership projects. The umbrella project, Stronger Together, was set up and run by The
River & Rowing Museum and The Langley Academy and funded by a major grant from Arts Council
England.
The purpose of the Stronger Together project is to understand how the Museum Learning
developed at The Langley Academy can be replicated in other contexts. At the core of this project
are 30 bursaries for museum and education professionals from across the Berkshire,
Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire region.
The grant has been primarily awarded on the basis of the project’s potential to shape how the
museum sector understands secondary education.
About Ditton Park Academy, Wexham School and Maidenhead Heritage Centre and the project
managers
Ditton Park Academy is a newly established mainstream comprehensive academy in Slough. The
school opened in 2014, with just the one cohort, Year 7. There are currently 114 students on roll at
the school. The school is a diverse school and reflects local community in school. There are twelve
students on free school meals, and 41 students with English as an additional language.
Karl Fenn - As Head of Humanities at Ditton Park Academy I was also the Project Lead for the
Museum Learning Project. It was my responsibility to plan, deliver and evaluate the sessions. I did
this collaboration with the two other people who were part of my project.
Wexham School is a slightly smaller-than-average non-selective secondary school with a sixth form
in a grammar school area. The proportions of students for whom the school receives pupil premium
funding (additional government funding for students known to be eligible for free school meals,
those who are looked after by the local authority and the children of services families), and of
students eligible for the Year 7 catch-up premium, are well above the national averages. The
proportion of disabled students and those with special educational needs supported by school
action is above average, as is the proportion supported by school action plus or with a statement of
special educational needs. The school currently has a specially resourced provision for 19 students
with autism. The provision caters for the same age range as the main school. The majority of
students are from minority ethnic backgrounds. About two-thirds of the students have a first
language other than English. (Ofsted Report 2013)
Paulina O’Neill - I am a Classroom Leader of Humanities and I have worked at Wexham School since
September 2013. Staff at Wexham School was informed about the Museum Learning Project and
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was encouraged to apply to participate in the project. I was interested in the project and became a
successful candidate.
Maidenhead Heritage Centre - Maidenhead Heritage Centre is a non-profit charity that has been
celebrating the history of Maidenhead and surrounding villages for over twenty years. The museum
is situated just off Maidenhead High Street and is open to the public 5 days a week. The museum is
supported by two members of staff and around 70 volunteers, the majority of whom are local
retirees. Alongside a permanent free exhibition exploring the history of Maidenhead, the museum
also puts on a range of free temporary exhibitions each year and has a dedicated wartime aviation
gallery with a Spitfire Simulator.
Virginia Jenner - I have been co-ordinating the museum’s schools and families programme on a
part-time basis since January 2014. The position of Education and Learning Officer was newly
created at this time, and prior to my appointment education was managed on an ad hoc basis by
volunteers. Our current schools offer is targeted at primary schools and historically the museum
has not had much involvement with local secondary schools. I was keen to apply for this project to
develop the museum’s contacts with secondary schools and to discover how our collections could
be made relevant to the KS3 curriculum. As a museum we were excited by the opportunity to
embark on an extended project that would strengthen our involvement with the community.
About the ‘How did the First World War affect the lives of people in Britain?’ project
Driver - To deepen pupils’ understanding of the First World War through the use of objects from the
Maidenhead Heritage Centre.
Activity Summary - Students visited the Maidenhead Heritage Centre at the start of the unit.
Throughout the unit students analysed different objects to investigate how people’s lives were
affected during The First World War. At the end of the unit students wrote a written evaluation and
created a workshop to tell a story about people’s lives during The First World War. The project was
delivered from November 3rd to December 19th at Wexham School.
Purpose - Students developed their research and analytical skills through the interpretation of
different objects from THE FIRST WORLD WAR. Students also thought independently about how
people’s lives were affected during THE FIRST WORLD WAR.
Project Managers - Helen Cook and Katherine Rose
Project Sponsor - Arts Council England
End User(s)- Year 7 students from Ditton Park Academy and Year 9 students from Wexham
Secondary School.
Stakeholder(s)- Maidenhead Heritage Centre, Mary Sparrow, Nick Caulfield, Leaders of Humanities,
Leader of History, Subject Leaders and students from Ditton Park Academy and Wexham Secondary
School.
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Ditton Park Academy - There were twelve students participating in the project from Ditton Park
Academy. This was to be carried out on a Friday afternoon after school, outside of curriculum time.
The project was a voluntary one and was open to students from across the ability range. It was
supported by parents, who gave their children permission to stay after school every Friday for four
months.
Pictured below: A group photo of the participants of the project from Ditton Park Academy
Wexham School - 28 Year 9 students were part of the Museum Learning Project. Paulina O’Neill is
the geography teacher for these students and had to switch teaching them history for a half term
for this project. There was a mixture of high, mid and low ability students. The project was
delivered for 50 minutes twice a week during their history lessons.
Pictured below: A group photo of the participants of the project from Wexham School
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3. Planning the project
Our initial reaction to the pairing, or rather grouping, within the Stronger Together project was one
of surprise. Our project was unique when compared to the others, in the sense that we were the
only group of three from the entire cohort. To make things more interesting, each of us had
proposed projects focusing on completely different areas of study and completely different time
periods. A further logistical challenge was presented when it was discovered that the two teachers
involved were also going to be delivering this project to different year groups. However, all of
these logistical issues were soon resolved. Although none of the partners had particular
preconceptions about each other, there was some element of concern on Virginia’s part as to how
the museum’s collections could be made relevant to students from Slough. However, she was
prepared for this scenario as she had been made aware at the interview stage of the project that no
schools from Maidenhead had applied.
Finalising the concept of the project was quite easy, and we were left in no doubt that the sum of
our final project was far greater than what the project would have been had we pressed ahead with
each of our individual aims. Without doubt, our collective planning ensured the delivery of a very
successful and enjoyable project. Our final project concept was essentially an amalgamation of the
best ideas from each project. Initially the two schools partners had hoped for projects focusing on
the medieval period, perhaps tying in with the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015. However,
following initial discussions Virginia had to admit that the museum would struggle to support this
idea based on its collections. She was also concerned that this would draw focus away from
Maidenhead, which would be detrimental to the long-term usefulness of the project to the
Heritage Centre. As an alternative, Virginia suggested a project focusing on the First World War to
tie in with the 1914-1918 Centenary. At this time Virginia was heavily involved with preparations for
a major First World War exhibition at the Heritage Centre, meaning greater resources and expertise
could be offered to support the project. Although this worked out to be a successful compromise,
initially Virginia was concerned about the ramifications of the shift in focus from the World War
Two aviation project the Heritage Centre had proposed during the application process for the
project. We decided to measure the impact this project had on the students academically by
combining the ideas from the teachers of Wexham Park School and Ditton Park Academy. This
involved setting the students an essay at the end of the project, as well as having the students
themselves work together and deliver a First World War exhibition to other students.
Deciding on the project objectives was a very straightforward process. The three of us met very
early on (July 2014) at Maidenhead Heritage Centre. During this meeting we physically looked at
the objects available to us and discussed ways we could build and enquiry around these objects
which would stimulate curiosity and deepen learning. An important focus of the meeting was
matching artefacts from the museum’s collections to anticipated curriculum topics. This was more
of a concern for Paulina, as Karl’s group would be involved with the project as an extra-curricular
activity. The two teachers involved then discussed a potential scheme of work based around these
objects. We decided each individual session was going to have smaller objectives, based on
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blooms’ taxonomy, but that the overall aim of the project was going to be: ‘To what extent were
peoples’ lives on the Home Front affected by the outbreak of the First World War’.
Following on from this meeting we shared regular and constant emails, which always had a
different focus. Early on, these emails tended to focus on the creation and implementation of a
scheme of work. Once the students started school in September, the three of us again met to put
dates in diaries for the visit/s of our students to the Maidenhead Heritage Centre. As part of our
project, we were also fortunate to have a member of staff from the Maidenhead Heritage Centre
visit each of our individual schools to deliver a workshop to our students, with great success. The
obvious challenge was not only working as a three, but also the aspect of two teachers delivering
the project to two different year groups posed a challenge. Email exchanges proved the most
effective way to stay in touch with each other and make plans during this stage, as it ensured the
same information was sent to all parties and enabled group discussions. The planning stage would
have been much more tricky to manage, particularly from Virginia’s perspective, if she had been
communicating separately with each teacher, for example via phone. Meetings were held with
appropriate staff members within our own school to deliver the project. The trip to the museum
needed to be approved by our line managers and they were also kept up to date with the progress
of the planning of the project.
Another aspect of our planning process that was perhaps more difficult for us than for other groups
has been finding times in which to meet that suited all three of us. Although both Karl and Paulina
work at schools in Slough, we usually met in Windsor, as this was more convenient for getting
home afterwards. Although it was a little challenging finding times that suited everyone, especially
as Virginia only works in Maidenhead part-time and does not live locally, we were usually successful
in arranging meetings as needed.
Our initial meeting at the Heritage Centre had allowed us to identify most of the resources we
would require for the project in terms of historic artefacts. Virginia was able to advise which
artefacts could be loaned to the schools and which could be removed from display for supervised
sessions in the classrooms. For Virginia, this process involved an extra logistical challenge, as we
wanted both schools to experience the same artefacts as far as possible. Virginia therefore sought
to find duplicate artefacts from the museum’s collections. Photographic resources were also shared
with the two teachers via Dropbox so that they were available for teaching if desired.
In preparation for each class to visit the museum Virginia organised a number of resources,
including additional volunteers, a KS3 appropriate quiz and seating. This was a little challenging
from the museum’s perspective, as usually primary classes who visit can sit on the floor. Luckily the
museum had enough chairs as they run a monthly lecture series, but Virginia had not anticipated
how full the main gallery would feel once 30+ chairs had been placed in it! The volunteers Virginia
recruited were Beryl (Schools/Front of House volunteer) and Brian (Curator), both of whom had
previously worked with school groups at the museum.
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Virginia also identified resources that the museum could supply for workshops carried out either at
the museum or in a classroom, e.g. clipboards, speakers etc. On her second visit to Wexham School
she spoke to each group of pupils and asked them what they would need to run their workshops, to
determine if the museum would need to source extra equipment. For example, some of the groups
requested historical costumes.
This stage of the project went very well, but it did soon start to feel a little as if the Museum
Champion from Maidenhead Heritage Centre was working almost independently, and perhaps even
separately, with two individual schools.
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4. Delivering the project
Delivering the project became two separate projects with the Maidenhead Heritage Centre,
however, both projects focused on the same objects. Ditton Park Academy and Wexham School
visited the Maidenhead Heritage Centre on two separate trips, it was being delivered to two
different year groups and it was delivered through extracurricular time at Ditton Park Academy and
class time at Wexham School.
Project activities
Ditton Park Academy - A detailed scheme of work is listed in Appendix D.
Wexham School - A detailed scheme of work is listed in Appendix E. The unit began to be delivered
the week of November 3rd 2015. The first two lessons focused on background knowledge of the
First World War. The students visited Maidenhead Heritage Centre on November 13th for sessions
delivered by Virginia Jenner. For the rest of the unit each lesson was focused on a different artefact.
The students were asked to explore a key question that related to the artefact. Through these
lessons the students deepened their knowledge on how the First World War affected the lives of
people in Britain.
Maidenhead Heritage Centre - The structure of the museum sessions for Ditton Park Academy and
Wexham School are listed in Appendix F and Appendix G. There are pictures of objects used for the
project are listed in Appendix H.
Following both of the museum workshops Virginia visited both groups at school.
Ditton Park Academy
I visited the Ditton Park students on a Friday afternoon during their history club. As the students
had not been able to see the trench art artefacts at the museum I brought these along to show
them for the first part of the session. I then talked the students through the process of making their
own workshops, highlighting the main factors they would need to think about and asking them to
write down their ideas. I was really pleased that one of the students had brought along his own
artefact to show the group, and overall they seemed very excited and I heard some good ideas
going around the room.
Wexham School
I made two visits to Paulina’s class following the museum workshop. During the first visit two
students gave me a tour of the school before I entered the classroom ready for their history lesson.
During the lesson I ran through the same presentation I had prepared for Ditton Park, asking the
students to record their ideas on large pieces of paper as we went through each topic. As Paulina
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wanted her class to compete for the chance to run a workshop, we also tasked the students with
getting themselves into teams and coming up with a team name. During the second visit I spoke to
each group in turn about their plans and offered advice and suggestions. I was impressed by their
ideas and pleased to see that characters like “The Pudding Lady” had resonated from the museum
session.
Reviewing the activities
Ditton Park Academy - There were a huge number of successes that I had not accounted for. As a
classroom teacher, I took great pride in seeing an increased and visible level of engagement,
passion and enthusiasm from the students involved in the project. Without doubt, this had been
sparked by their curiosity following on from the Friday project sessions. Students would come to
me on a Monday with floods of voluntary research, facts, ideas and suggestions. Some even went
as far as buying replica artefacts and others began pestering parents for trips to the Imperial War
Museum. It is testament to the success of the project that I managed to deliver this project outside
of curriculum time on a voluntary basis. My students stayed back for one hour every Friday from
early September. As can be seen from the data, I feel comfortable in concluding that the students’
level of engagement had a direct impact in lessons. I had not accounted for the improved level of
effort I would get from the cohort of students doing the project when setting homework. The
standard was visibly higher than other students from the class. This sort of impact is something I
have seen very rarely in my teaching career, and I feel privileged to have seen it this year.
However, there were of course some challenges. Firstly, being paired with a museum that is a sixtyminute round trip away made visits difficult. This is because it is very difficult to justify more than
one trip to the same location when it means taking students out of lessons. When planning the
project in the summer, I was not aware of how my new school’s timetable would afford me little
flexibility, in the sense that the only days I could realistically take students out were on a
Wednesday and on a Friday. Sadly, it was only therefore possible to visit Maidenhead Heritage
Centre on a Wednesday, as my Museum partner only worked Monday through to Wednesday at
the centre. Another difficulty I had was that I had to deliver the project to the students on a Friday
afternoon. Although this wasn’t an issue at first, by the end, at the crucial stage of sessions,
increasing numbers of students started to make excuses about issues concerning attendance and
even punctuality.
Wexham School - Before delivering the activities the history teacher and myself had to switch
teaching our subjects. This was a difficult challenge because the students became confused as to
why I was delivering the history instead of the geography curriculum. Throughout this process the
school was very supportive. My line managers and my co-worker were supportive of the project
and knew that this unit would be beneficial to our Year 9 students. Our trip to the Maidenhead
Heritage Centre was successful as it engaged the students and sparked their curiosity for the unit.
Delivering the project then became difficult in regular lessons. Each lesson was focused on a
specific object but for a few weeks there were no objects for delivering the project. I relied on
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primary sources from the internet or pictures of the objects from the museum. Maidenhead
Heritage Centre did bring in artefacts to use later on in the delivery of the project. This allowed me
to re-focus my lessons on the objects, however, students lost interest because they were working
with the same objects that they used during their visit to the museum. It became challenging to
keep them focused and engaged in the project. If I were to deliver a museum learning project again
it would be in the subject area that I teach my class in because that would avoid disruption and
confusion at the start of the project. I would also need to ensure that if we are focusing on object
based learning that I have the objects prior to the start of the unit. I would also try to use new
objects every lesson to keep students engaged. Overall, the project had a positive impact on their
progress, however, they became disengaged near the end of the unit.
Maidenhead Heritage Centre Session with Ditton Park Academy
The timetable
for the session
was created
with the
intention of
giving a small
snapshot of as
many topics as
possible, with
the idea that
these could be
expanded out in the classroom as the Friday sessions progressed. However, I quickly realised that
the students’ enthusiasm to ask questions meant we were getting behind schedule. I wanted the
students to feel that their questions were valued and welcomed rather than shutting this process
down. I was also intrigued to discover which aspects of the topic were catching their interest.
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Following the activity with Beatrice and Dolly’s stories, during which both groups chose to give
verbal presentations, I realised that
we would not have time to complete
both the rationing and trench art
handling activities. I decided to focus
on rationing and then skip to the
gallery exploration task. This involved
a quiz and postcard writing activity,
but as we were very pressed for time
the students weren’t able to
complete these. Nevertheless, I was
glad that the students’ had time to
explore the exhibition freely.
Session with Wexham School
The plan for Wexham’s session varied significantly from the initial workshop with Ditton Park,
mainly due to the fact that the group were able to visit for a longer period of time.
My main concerns when planning the Wexham visit were the number of students and the fact they
were an older year group. This led to some logistical difficulties. Ditton Park’s smaller group were
able to sit around a circular table in the gallery, but with 30 students the entire gallery had to be
filled with chairs. Luckily we had hosted a lunchtime lecture at the museum that morning so the
chairs were already in place, but this did have a major impact on the amount of space available in
the gallery.
I was a little intimidated about beginning the initial talk, as I was worried about potential
behavioural problems or disruptions, as well as simply holding the attention of 30 Year 9s, all of
whom were much bigger than me! Similarly to with the Ditton Park group, I tried to keep the
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atmosphere fairly relaxed and informal. I wanted to encourage the students to ask questions and to
feel welcomed and valued in the space.
Due to the large size of the group I decided to split the class into two smaller groups for the next
activities, which were exploring the exhibition and object handling. A downside of this arrangement
turned out to be the difficulty of communicating with my volunteer, Beryl, who became frustrated
by the students’ attempts to use their iPads to help them research answers to the quiz. While Beryl
felt that the iPads were a disruptive influence on the activity, meanwhile I was encouraging
students’ in the object-handling group to use Google and their iPad cameras to help them
investigate the function and history of the artefacts. I discussed these issues with Beryl at the end
of the session, and was concerned that the students’ had been given mixed messages about their
iPads. This experience has made me realise that I need to address our attitude to technology like
mobile phones/iPads/tablets etc. during training with volunteers.
I subtly changed the emphasis of the handling activity to focus on the students’ investigative skills,
rather than me feeding them information. I asked the students to work out what the artefacts were
used for, who they were used by, etc., and I also included a mystery object – a hot cross bun crosser
(Item #1 in Appendix H). I was surprised how difficult the students’ found this latter task, as it had
not occurred to me that their diverse cultural backgrounds would mean many of them had never
eaten a hot cross bun.
Another concern during the object handling was the way in which a minority of students handled
artefacts without due care and attention. I saw some postcards being bent by the students’
handling them, no doubt absent-mindedly, but I realised through talking to them about it that they
hadn’t appreciated either how old the postcards were, or the fact that they were real, and not
replicas. This made me think about how I could reinforce this message in future.
The final activity saw a re-vamped version of the postcard activity, which I scheduled a separate
timeslot for. I wanted the activity to be more challenging for a KS3 group and so I hit on the idea of
giving each student a “character” to write from the perspective of. The “characters” were a mixture
of real and imagined people living in Maidenhead in THE FIRST WORLD WAR. I was happy that
several of the students’ asked to swap their character, which showed that they were interested and
invested in the activity.
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5. Impact on students of participating in the project
Ditton Park Academy
Our aim was for students to undertake an enquiry in to the impact the First World War had on
people’s lives living on the Home Front. Using blooms, we broken these down by skills (interpret,
describe, explain, justify and analyse). As can be seen through looking at the scheme of work, these
aims would be met by using artefacts and objects as a basis for the enquiry. Each session
contributed towards building up to answering the final question, which was an extended essay
question.
It is without doubt that these sessions had a great cognitive impact on the students involved. The
best way of measuring this impact is to compare the cohort of students involved in the museum
learning project against peers from their normal teaching sets, who were not part of the project.
One achievement that I thought would be difficult to measure was engagement and enthusiasm. It
is hard to prove the look on the faces of students as they handled the objects, or describe the sheer
volume of questions they would ask (and often go away and answer for themselves independently.
Average H/W grade of project
participannts when
compared to the average
grade of their classmates
Above
However, the pie chart (left) illustrates just how much
more effort they put into all aspects of their History
homework. Each of the 12 students achieved a homework
effort grade that was at least as good as the rest of their
peers from their normal teaching groups.
Below
Each of the pictures, though
hard to validly and truly
capture, should serve to
illustrate just how
enthusisatic the students
were as well, as can be seen
through the sheer volume of
smiles and hands up.
Within one term, or two assessment points, it became clear that those students taking part in the
museum learning project were making more progress compared to the rest of their class peers
from their normal teaching sets. Within these sessions students were able to develop and refine
their curriculum skills, which was to have a huge impact in lessons and assessments. Specifially,
students learnt to question the provenance of written sources and assess them for utility and
reliablkilty. These are skills are techniques that are usually associated with GCSE students.
However, though difficult at first, the students proved they were up to the task. Then, during
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normal curriculum time, project students were able to apply these GCSE skills in a different context,
with great success. This is why every single student from the project was at least already on their
end of year target grade by the December assessment. Pleasingly, a total of eight students were
actually already working above their end of year target grade by this point. Clearly other factors
played a role, such as natural porgression and understnading, but I am confident this project was
one of the leading causes of this rapid amount of progress. These points are illustrated in the table
below. The project students are outperforming their peers in both assessments, progress and
homework effort levels (with 1 being the highest grade and 4 being the lowest grade).
Such has been the extent of progress, I have now extended the project ever so slightly. I have have
a total of four out of the twelve students who stay behind every Monday and Tuesday to help
support students who are below their current levels of progress in History. These students are able
to use their expertise, and theoretically pass it on to others, during these sessions. These sessions
would perhaps have not been considered had the project not afforded me the opportunity of
seeing just how well some students worked as group leaders.
Pre-museum visit survey
Which statement do you most agree with?
Statement
Museums are boring, but you can learn lots
from them.
Museums are not usually relevant to what I
am studying.
I would only ever visit a museum on a school
trip.
Museums are fun and you can learn lots
from them.
Tally
II
IIIII
IIIII
17 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Pre-museum visit survey – Additional student comments
Statement
Learn things from museums
They are for old people
Not exciting / are boring
Generally negative comment
Generally positive comment
Tally
III
III
IIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
III
Post-museum visit survey
Which statement do you most agree with?
Statement
Museums are boring, but you can
learn lots from them.
Museums are not usually relevant
to what I am studying.
I would only ever visit a museum
on a school trip.
Museums are fun and you can
learn lots from them.
Tally
I
I
IIIIIIIIII
Post-museum visit survey – Additional student comments
Statement
Learn things from museums
They are fun or interesting or cool
Generally negative comment
Generally positive comment
Tally
III
IIIIIIII
0
IIIIIII
In terms of the impact the project
had on the students’ views of
muesuems, this is perhaps the area
where the most drastic change is
visible. As can bee seen from the
tables below, prior to the trip, the
vast majority of students had
something negative to say about
museums. The students, in their
own words, tended to describe
museums as boring or not exciting.
When given statements to choose
from, the majority of students said
the museums tended to be a place
where they would only visit on a
school trip, with some also ticking
that mueseums tended to not be
relevant to what they are studying
at school.
However, having visited the
museum, student comments
completely changed. When
choosing from a lsit of statements,
all but two students indicated that
‘Museums are fun and you can learn
lots from them’. This marks a
significant shift from the more
negative responses from the pre
visit survey. When asked to add
their own comments and elaborate,
every single student responded with
a positive comment. Interestingly,
no one student made a negative
comment here. As can be seen from
the table, the consensus was that
museums are fun and lots of
information can be taken from
them.
18 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Wexham School
Our scheme of work was built around a central question ‘How did the First World War affect the
lives of people in Britain?’ Each lesson focused on a different object or topic that helped to answer
that central question. At the end of the unit students wrote an extended essay answering this
central question.
At the start of the delivery of the unit I gave a survey for students to complete. The survey asked
students to define museum learning and asked them to describe their knowledge of the First World
War. I gave the same survey to the students at the end of the unit to see the changes in their
responses. I have included the questions asked and examples of student responses below:
Question 1- What does museum learning mean to you?
Prior to the Project
“Museum learning means to me that you go to a
museum and learn about history.”
“That you learn about artefacts if it is a museum
like the natural history museum.”
“You learn while you are walking around the
museum.”
After the Project
“It means learning and having resources to help
us learn.”
“It means interactive learning and fun.”
“Involving ourselves with our rich and diverse
heritage in enriching and transformational
experiences. Museum learning provides
distinctive opportunities for learning. Museum
learning can transform our lives and should be
accessible, relevant and enjoyable to everyone.”
Question 2- From a scale from 1-5 (1 being the most excited) are you excited about the museum
learning project?
19 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Question 3- What can you learn from a source/artefact?
Prior to the Project
“Information about the history and artists.”
“There's more detail and you can see it for
yourself.”
“You can learn about the conditions that it's was
in.”
After the Project
“I can learn what they used it for and why.”
“You can learn about what the place was like
(where it originated from) what its importance is
and what it resembles.”
“We can learn what happened in the past and
how they lived.”
Question 4- What do you know about the First World War?
Prior to the Project
“It is a war.”
“People died.”
“That it was the first war.”
After the Project
“It was a global war starting in Europe.”
“I know that it started because a man was killed
and then allies and axis started fighting.”
“It started in 1914 and finished in 1918.”
Question 5- What were conditions like for soldiers who fought in the First World War?
Prior to the Project
“It was bad.”
“It was disgusting and horrific.”
“The conditions were not good.”
After the Project
“The conditions were bad and people died from
diseases from rats in the trenches.”
“There was nothing glamorous about trench life.
World War 1 trenches were dirty, smelly and
riddled with disease. For soldiers life in the
trenches meant living in fear. In fear of diseases
(like cholera and trench foot) and of course, the
constant fear of enemy attack.”
“The conditions for soldiers were very bad
because they had to sleep and fight in trenches
and there were infestations of rats and mice.”
Question 6 - What was life like for people who stayed in England during the First World War?
Prior to the Project
“It was generally peaceful.”
After the Project
“At the outbreak of war in 1914, the British
Army had 700,000 available men. Germany’s
wartime army was over 3.7 million. When a
campaign for volunteers was launched,
thousands answered the call to fight. Among
them were 250,000 boys and young men under
the age of 19, the legal limit for armed service
overseas.”
20 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
“They were in fear of being bombed.”
“Poor conditions.”
“More women were able to work.”
“People had food rationing cards.”
The students changed their opinion of what museum learning meant. Most responses prior to the
project identified going to a museum whereas after the project there was more of a focus about
learning in a fun way and it being a resource. Most students identified that they were excited about
the project. Their opinions about artefacts remained similar before and after the project indicating
that they understand how to use artefacts to enhance their learning. Their general knowledge of
the First World War improved as responses changed from them just knowing it was a war to
identifying some causes of the war and the timeline of the war. Their knowledge of the conditions
soldiers lived in improved significantly. Overall, their general knowledge of museum learning and
the First World War improved and this can be shown through these survey responses.
The students also completed a written assessment to see if the knowledge they had gained could
translate into students making progress. The students were asked to answer the question ‘How did
the First World War affect the lives of people in Britain?’ and draw upon their knowledge from
lessons throughout the unit.
End of Year Target Grade Term 1 Assessment Museum Learning Test
7c
5a
6c
6b
5c
5a
7c
5a
5a
7c
5a
5a
6c
5b
5c
6c
5c
5c
6b
4a
5c
4b
4b
4a
6b
5b
6c
6c
5c
5a
5a
4c
4a
7c
5a
6c
21 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
6c
5b
5b
6b
5b
5a
6a
5c
5c
6c
4a
5b
6c
4a
5b
6a
5b
5a
6c
4c
4b
5c
4a
4a
7b
6c
6b
7b
5b
6c
6b
4c
4b
6c
4c
4b
22 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
From the evaluation it is clear that many students did make progress during the unit. The amount
of students who are below target reduced from 88% of the class to 63% of the class showing that
many students did improve their level. I decided to look at how many students made progress and
how their progress improved from their first assessment 38% of students improved their progress
by one sublevel and 29% of students improved their progress by two sub levels. This shows that
many students were able to make progress during the project. There are 33% of students who did
not make progress so it is questionable as to whether this project translates into a student’s ability
to translate their knowledge through objects into high order thinking that is needed to achieve
higher levels.
There are different factors that could influence these results. The data prior to the project is from
their original history teacher’s data and I was not their history teacher during that term. It would be
23 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
interesting to see a more sustained long-term impact on student data as the delivery of the project
occurred over 7 weeks.
Maidenhead Heritage Centre
Ditton Park Academy - Enjoyed
Enjoyed (9 individual responses)
Learning about nurses
2
The quiz
1
The daily mail cookery book
1
The exhibition
2
Looking at artefacts
2
Looking at pictures
1
Everything
1
Learning about rationing
1
"I enjoyed looking at the pictures and the things here"
"Learning about Beatrice because she works where my dad
lives now"
Ditton Park Academy - Inspired
Inspired (10 individual responses)
To learn more about World War One
5
"I would like to learn more about soldiers"
"To research more about World War One instead of
World War Two"
By the army
3
"To join the army"
"To stand up for my country"
"This inspired my to never give up like the people of
the army"
By women in World War One
1
"I am inspired by the fact that women fought for their
rights"
By the postcards
1
"The postcards inspired me to learn more"
24 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
PARTICIPANTS WERE INSPIRED...
An
attitude/emoti
onal response
40%
To learn more
60%
Ditton Park Academy - Learnt
Learnt (10 individual responses)
The short soldiers were called
Bantems
About Dolly/Beatrice
That food was disgusting
6
4
1
Wexham School - Enjoyed
Artefacts
7
"I enjoyed handling the objects from World War One"
The mystery object
1
“It was fun when we were looking at World War One objects”
“I enjoyed feeling the souvenirs”
“I enjoyed the hands on action”
2
Learning new facts about World War One
2
“One thing I enjoyed about today was learning about World War One and
how it affected people”
Doing the quiz
6
Activities
1
Interacting with Brian
2
“I enjoyed sir’s jokes”
Writing postcards
3
“I enjoyed the place”
1
The coach
1
Total
26
25 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
PARTICIPANTS' ENJOYED...
Interacting with
museum staff
5%
Learning (inc
quiz)
19%
Other
5%
An activity
(quiz/handling/p
ostcards)
47%
Artefacts
24%
Wexham School - Surprised
Surprised (18 individual responses)
Brian’s facts/jokes
2
That Maidenhead was a safe place during the war
1
“I was surprised by the fact that Maidenhead was a safe haven for civilians”
The mystery object
4
“I was surprised that hot-cross buns were individually crossed”
“I was surprised when I found out what the mystery item was”
“I was surprised by the old things”
Artefacts
3
Learning about the poppy appeal
2
“I was surprised by how funny Brian was and by the 2 women who started the
poppies”
“I was surprised by the nicknames people had – the pudding lady”
1
Rationing
2
“Something that surprised me was that you had to pay for and have rations to
buy food.”
“The thing that surprised me was they made a pomato”
About soldiers
1
“Something that surprised me is how boys WANTED to go to war”
1
“I was surprised by the amount of people that died”
1
“I was surprised that they have a skeleton from a human”
1
Being asked to write feedback
1
Total
18
26 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
PARTICIPANTS' WERE SURPRISED BY...
Local facts
16%
Artefacts
31%
Other
21%
General WW1
facts
32%
Wexham School - Learnt
Learnt (25 individual responses)
About World War One
“I learned about World War One more than I learned at school”
That people only ate hot cross buns at Easter
About Beatrice Kay, a nurse at Cliveden
“I learnt a lot of things about the nurse”
About the Pudding Lady
“I learnt quite a lot about the Pudding lady”
“I learnt that the Pudding Lady did demonstrations on war cooking”
About the woman from Maidenhead who was arrested as a German
spy twice
About the poppy appeal
About World War One artefacts
“Hands on action”
That the museum exists
“I learnt that there is a history museum here”
About the struggles of people/conditions of life
“I learnt that life was tough in the war”
That people were forbidden to talk about the war
That Maidenhead was a safe place during the war
About soldiers
“I learnt that all soldiers slept on the floor except the sergeant”
That Tom Ayer was the first person to die
“I learnt who Arthur Upson was”
Total
5
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
3
1
1
2
1
1
25
27 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
PARTICIPANTS' LEARNT ABOUT...
Artefacts
8%
Other
4%
General WW1
facts
52%
Local people &
facts
36%
Overall Impressions
PARTICIPANTS' ENJOYED...
Interaction Other
4%
6%
Activities
43%
Learning
21%
Artefacts/collec
tion
26%
28 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
PARTICIPANTS LEARNT ABOUT...
Other
Artefacts
3%
5%
General WW1
facts
56%
Local people &
facts
36%
General Observations
One of the most unexpected outcomes of the project was how positively the Wexham students
would react to the Heritage Centre’s Curator, Brian, who helped out with the museum workshop.
Brian represented a different kind of adult to those usually found within the students’ home and
school environments. Brian also served in the army in his younger days, meaning he had direct
experience to draw from when discussing topics such as the life of a soldier with the group. The
class specifically requested that Brian accompany Virginia to the school for her first visit.
From the data, we can see that Brian also had a big impact on the Ditton Park group. 6 out of 10
pupils answered that they had learnt about the nickname for short soldiers, “Bantems”, which was
a fact that Brian had shared with the group, and not something we had planned on discussing.
However, it seemed to resonate with them, and clearly by the end of the session it was one of the
more memorable facts.
I am really pleased to see how much of an impact “local” people and stories made on the students
during their visits. While the data shows they did not have as much of an impact as “general” World
War One facts on students’ learning, the fact that Paulina’s group in particular had not experienced
much teaching on the subject prior to the visit made this not unexpected. It should also be
considered that all the 5% of correspondents who said they had learnt about artefacts were
handling objects that, in most cases, had a direct connection with a person from or place in
Maidenhead.
Good Quotes

“I learned about World War One more than I learned at school” – this respondent clearly
articulates that the museum workshop had enhanced her learning about the topic
compared to her classroom experience.
29 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?




"To research more about World War One instead of World War Two" – a lot of students
responded that they had either learnt about World War One or would like to learn more,
but this student seems to have compared the topic to that of World War Two, perhaps
suggesting that the museum experience had made World War One a more interesting or
approachable topic in some way.
"Learning about Beatrice because she works where my dad lives now" - I was really excited
to see this response, as one of my worries at the start of the project had been how to make
our collections relevant to students from Slough.
“I was surprised by how funny Brian was” – while we were surprised at Brian’s popularity
with the class, it was a great feeling to know that he had succeeded in breaking through the
perception of museums (and by association their staff) as boring, old, etc. Despite the huge
generational gap between Brian and the students, they clearly related with each other.
“I learnt that there is a history museum here” – one of the major challenges for the Heritage
Centre is local awareness, so I was not surprised to read this response!
Summary of key benefits and lessons learnt
At Ditton Park Academy the average level improved way above what was expected and the
majority of the project participants are currently working above their end of year target grade, in
part as a result of their participation in this project. In addition, Year 7 students demonstrated that,
providing work is sufficiently challenging and stimulating, they can work as well independently and
collaboratively as GCSE students. The project participants frequently worked together in groups to
solve mysteries or problems. In addition, they developed their investigative skills by developing the
ability to ask questions and then discuss potential answers with peers, before going home to
independently research something. From the evaluation at Wexham School it is clear that many
students did make progress during the unit. The amount of students who are below target reduced
from 88% of the class to 63% of the class showing that many students did improve their level. I
decided to look at how many students made progress and how their progress improved from their
first assessment 38% of students improved their progress by one sublevel and 29% of students
improved their progress by two sub levels. The majority of students from Ditton Park Academy and
Wexham School responded well to the localized history of Maidenhead stating they felt a
connection to a person or place they learned about in Maidenhead through the artefacts they used.
30 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
6. Impact on project managers of running the project
Karl Fenn - The project had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the project manager running the
project.
Paulina O’Neill - Through this project I have developed my professional practice. During this project
I organized my first school trip to a museum and this has given me the confidence to arrange more
trips for my students. My view of museum learning changed throughout the project. At first I
considered museum learning to be object-based learning in the classroom in partnership with a
museum. During the delivery of the project this changed into relying on primary resources from
various sources on the internet to encourage curiosity in my lessons. Museum learning became a
way of teaching to spark curiosity through the use of primary sources. This, however, is the way our
history department delivers the history curriculum but we do not define it as ‘museum learning.’ I
have determined that museum learning is just good teaching practice in a lesson as it is based on
using curiosity to engage students and have them discover information through exploring this
curiosity. Prior to this project I believed that schools would just visit a museum, participate in some
workshops and that would be the end of the learning experience. Throughout this project my views
have changed and I believe that you can work in partnership with a museum to tailor workshops to
suit the needs of a class. I also believe you can teach museum learning by working with local
museums to rent loan boxes with objects to deliver a unit.
Virginia Jenner - The main impact for me has been the boost in experience and confidence to work
with older year groups. I have gained valuable experience in planning content to make it engaging
and relevant to KS3 year groups, and also in the skills and attitude required to deliver a workshop
successfully. Each time I met with the groups I felt more confident in my role and my ability to
handle the class. Although I found both groups challenging in different ways – and Paulina’s group
more challenging in particular simply due to the number of students – I found myself wanting to
rise to the challenge and develop a rapport with the students, rather than feeling negative or
inadequate.
Another impact on my professional practice has been the experience of working on an extended
project with Karl and Paulina. I have really enjoyed this process and it has provided me with a
unique, invaluable insight into the working life of a secondary class and the circumstances that
might prevent a teacher or school from visiting museums. I will certainly be reflecting on what I
have learnt from them when I consider how I can engage with local secondary teachers after this
project. For example, I am now much more aware of the challenges secondary teachers face in
terms of budgeting and timetabling for off-site visits compared to primary teachers.
As our project followed a relatively traditional museum learning format, focusing on history and
artefacts rather than unusual cross-curricular links, I don’t feel that it has drastically changed the
way I think about Museum Learning. To a certain degree it has alleviated my perception of a gaping
chasm between primary and secondary museum learning, as I have witnessed the KS3 students
enjoying and benefiting from very similar workshop activities to those I have run with much
31 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
younger students, with only minor imaginative tweaks needed to make them relevant and engaging
(e.g. writing postcards and the mystery artefact game).
Summary of key benefits and lessons learnt
Museum learning has had a positive impact on project managers. Museum learning is a name for
good teaching practice. Museums and schools can form stronger partnerships to deliver a more
customized learning experience for pupils. It can focus on local history, which our students enjoyed.
Through stronger partnerships between schools and museums there can be newer and more
innovative ways to incorporate museum learning that doesn’t involve a traditional class trip. It can
involve museum visits to the schools and loan boxes of artefacts to improve student engagement.
32 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
7. Impact of the project for Ditton Park Academy, Wexham School and
Maidenhead Heritage Centre
Ditton Park Academy
One key benefit was obviously the impact the project had on the History results. The average level
improved way above what was expected and the majority of the project participants are currently
working above their end of year target grade, in part as a result of their participation in this project.
In addition, Year 7 students demonstrated that, providing work is sufficiently challenging and
stimulating, they can work as well independently and collaboratively as GCSE students. The project
participants frequently worked together in groups to solve mysteries or problems. In addition, they
developed their investigative skills by developing the ability to ask questions and then discuss
potential answers with peers, before going home to independently research something.
Perhaps most importantly, the project gave members of staff from Ditton Park Academy the chance
to work with colleagues from other local schools. This was particularly important to Ditton Park
Academy given that it is a new school in its first year. It was great to meet other teaching staff from
the local area and discuss curriculum ideas with these experienced colleagues from successful
schools. It also gave the History department the opportunity to establish extra-curricular contacts,
which can be used in future years. Across Humanities at Ditton Park Academy, the ethos of the
museum learning project seeks to be implemented. We aim to foster a sense of discover and
curiosity via an enquiry in our schemes of work, and within lessons themselves.
Wexham School
It is early to determine the impact this project will have for Wexham School. This project is forming
part of an action research project that I am completing for my professional development. At the
end of the year staff members who are involved in action research projects will be presenting to
the school what their project was about and how it has impacted progress, engagement and our
teaching practice. I will be presenting to all staff members about what museum learning is, how the
project was delivered, the results it had on progress and how it can be incorporated into our
teaching practice at the school.
There is a potential for ‘museum learning’ to be implemented in some capacity by individual
teachers. I believe mostly the history department will implement it and perhaps the humanities
department as museum learning would be much easier to implement in those lessons.
While there are no next steps firmly in place there are aspects of museum learning at Wexham
School. Our subject leader of history, Laura Cole, has worked with local museums to have loan
boxes of objects for teachers to use in their history lessons. Our school has also visited various
museums for different subjects to increase student engagement. I believe that museum learning at
Wexham School will continue to grow through the use of loan boxes and trips, however, it is not as
personalised as this project was.
33 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Maidenhead Heritage Centre
From my perspective, the Heritage Centre has learnt a lot about working with secondary schools
through this project. Secondary students can enjoy the museum, it isn’t boring!
Brian is a great asset, and his ability to relate across the generations needs to be captured across
the museum, which is mostly staffed by retirees. Before this project I would have said I was
concerned how my volunteers would cope with secondary students, and I know Beryl was fairly
apprehensive about the Year 9s. What other potential do we have among our volunteer body for
inter-generational projects or collaboration? I have been cherishing an idea of recording oral
histories with primary children and some of my volunteers, but now I am thinking why not get older
students involved as well - they shouldn’t miss out.
There are logistical challenges to organising secondary visits: neither of the schools could visit on
our preferred day of Monday, which meant my working pattern had to be very flexible. Luckily the
bursary made this possible, but for future projects this might be an issue.
At the moment, as all education takes place in the main museum gallery we are restricted in what
we can do by the need to give older students chairs to sit on. During the planning stages I was
enthusiastic about incorporating drama activities into the workshops, but I realised that there
simply wasn’t room. It was useful to work with the two different sizes of group as this clearly
demonstrated the benefits of working with smaller groups in our museum environment.
At the time of writing, as we have not yet completed all the steps of our project the main focus is
on finalising the arrangements for the students’ to deliver their workshops. From my perspective, I
am still very interested to see the students’ workshops as one of the outcomes of the project we
were hoping for was an insight into what KS3 students thought would make a good workshop. This
question has been answered to some extent by the students’ planning, but I would love to capture
the feedback of their peers/participants after the workshops as well to see if their ideas were
successful.
From my perspective, I would have to think carefully about repeating a similar project in terms of
the limitations of our museum space and also my work schedule. I would certainly look to work
with smaller groups to make the project more manageable, and I would also ideally want to work
with Maidenhead schools within walking distance. This in particular would make sense for a future
repetition of the project as it would eliminate much of the cost of an extended collaboration, and
would mean that students could deliver their workshops at the museum. This was initially discussed
for Karl’s group but the cost was found to be too prohibitive, and for Paulina’s group was difficult
due to the size of the group.
34 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Summary of key benefits and lessons learnt
The ethos of museum learning will be implemented at Ditton Park Academy. At Wexham School the
project had a positive impact, however, if and how ‘museum learning’ will be incorporated in
lessons is still being determined. At the Maidenhead Heritage Centre they have learned a lot about
working with secondary schools but the structure of how to replicate this model in the future is still
being determined. Working with local organisations helped to build strong connections that will be
useful in the future.
35 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
8. Conclusion and key learnings
Overall the Stronger Together Project had a positive impact on Ditton Park Academy, Wexham
School and the Maidenhead Heritage Centre.
At Ditton Park Academy the average level improved way above what was expected and the
majority of the project participants are currently working above their end of year target grade, in
part as a result of their participation in this project. In addition, Year 7 students demonstrated that,
providing work is sufficiently challenging and stimulating, they can work as well independently and
collaboratively as GCSE students. The project participants frequently worked together in groups to
solve mysteries or problems. In addition, they developed their investigative skills by developing the
ability to ask questions and then discuss potential answers with peers, before going home to
independently research something. From the evaluation at Wexham School it is clear that many
students did make progress during the unit. The amount of students who are below target reduced
from 88% of the class to 63% of the class showing that many students did improve their level. I
decided to look at how many students made progress and how their progress improved from their
first assessment 38% of students improved their progress by one sublevel and 29% of students
improved their progress by two sub levels. The majority of students from Ditton Park Academy and
Wexham School responded well to the localized history of Maidenhead stating they felt a
connection to a person or place they learned about in Maidenhead through the artefacts they used.
Museum learning has had a positive impact on project managers. Museum learning is a name for
good teaching practice. Museums and schools can form stronger partnerships to deliver a more
customized learning experience for pupils. It can focus on local history, which our students enjoyed.
Through stronger partnerships between schools and museums there can be newer and more
innovative ways to incorporate museum learning that doesn’t involve a traditional class trip. It can
involve museum visits to the schools and loan boxes of artefacts to improve student engagement.
The ethos of museum learning will be implemented at Ditton Park Academy. At Wexham School the
project had a positive impact, however, if and how ‘museum learning’ will be incorporated in
lessons is still being determined. At the Maidenhead Heritage Centre they have learned a lot about
working with secondary schools but the structure of how to replicate this model in the future is still
being determined. Working with local organisations helped to build strong connections that will be
useful in the future.
36 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
9. Appendices
Appendix A: Project plan
Stronger Together Project Management Plan
Project name: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in
Britain?
Project partners: Ditton Park Academy, Wexham Secondary School and the
Maidenhead Heritage Centre
STAGE ONE: INITIAL PLANNING
Rationale
Driver
To deepen pupils’ understanding of World War One through the use of
objects from the Maidenhead Heritage Centre.
Activity
summary
Students will visit the Maidenhead Heritage Centre at the start of the
unit. Throughout the unit students will analyse different objects to
investigate how people’s lives were affected during World War One. At
the end of the unit students will create a workshop to tell a story about
people’s lives during World War One and they will compete to deliver
this workshop at both schools and the Maidenhead Heritage Centre.
37 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Purpose
Key
people
Results
Students will develop their research and analytical skills through the
interpretation of different objects from World War One. Students will
also think independently about how people’s lives were affected during
World War One.
Project
Manager
Helen Cook and Katherine Rose
Project
Sponsor
Arts Council England
End User(s)
Year 7 Students from Ditton Park Academy & Year 9 Students from
Wexham Secondary School
Stakeholder(s)
Maidenhead Heritage Centre, Mary Sparrow, Nick Caulfield, Leaders
of Humanities, Leader of History, Subject Leaders and students from
Ditton Park Academy and Wexham Secondary School.
Success Criteria
Output (s)
Outcome
To visit Maidenhead
Heritage Centre to
develop an
understanding of how
lives were affected by
the war.
A visit by Ditton Park Academy
and Wexham Secondary
School to Maidenhead
Heritage Centre to see the
WW1 exhibit and participate in
different workshops on WW1.
To learn about how
peoples’ lives were
affected by WW1. To
learn about different
types of workshops
hosted by a Museum.
To use objects from
Maidenhead Heritage
Centre to evaluate how
people's lives were
affected by THE FIRST
WORLD WAR.
Maidenhead Heritage Centre
will provide objects and
pictures to Ditton Park
Academy and Wexham School
for delivering the unit.
Students will develop
their research and
analytical skills by
investigating what the
objects show about
peoples’ lives in WW1.
Students will create a
workshop on one aspect of
how people’s lives were
affected WW1. They will
compete to host their
Students will improve
their communication
and leadership skills by
creating and delivering a
To create a workshop
for students outside
the school community.
38 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
workshop at Maidenhead
Heritage Centre for students in
the area and to students at
participating schools.
workshop.
STAGE TWO: FURTHER PLANNING
Resources
People
Paulina O’Neill, Virginia Jenner, Additional Volunteers for the
Maidenhead Heritage Centre and Staff members from Ditton Park
Academy
Money
Coach travel to the Maidenhead Heritage Centre, admission and
workshop costs for the students and the cost of materials for the
students to lead a workshop.
Time
Teachers to visit Maidenhead Heritage Centre to see the exhibit in
September, a school trip the week after the October half term and a
trip at the end of the four-week project for the students leading a
museum workshop.
Materials/
equipment
The objects being provided by Maidenhead Heritage Centre and
materials to create and lead a workshop for students outside the
school community.
Risk
Likelihood
Impact
Object Handling
Medium/High
Have clear rules on how to handle objects.
Provide gloves to students for handling
objects. Supervise students who are
handling an object.
Students getting hurt
by an object
Low
Have clear rules on how to handle objects.
Tell students how to handle objects safely.
Have a first aid kit readily available.
Student
misinterpretations
Low to
Medium
Have differentiated material for analysing
objects. Model answers when explaining
objects. Have mixed ability groups for
39 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
workshops.
Poor Behaviour
Low to
Medium
Set high expectations and clear rules for the
project.
Poor confidence for
leading workshops
Low to
Medium
Have a competition among groups so the
best groups are selected to lead a workshop
for students outside the school community.
STAGE THREE: DELIVERY
Ditton Park Academy
How were the lives of people on the Home Front affected by the outbreak of the First World War?
Lesson
1.
The personal stories of WW1 –
What happened to Private
Fenn?
Objects
Tasks
Official records of the death of Private
Fenn (enlistment document, enlistment
photo, Hayes newspaper article, death
certificate and finally the Menim Gate
letter and photo).
- A photograph of FF’s jacket
- A photo of the assassination of FF
-
Students circle map what they
already know about WW1
Students complete investigation,
looking at 5 primary sources to
12/09/14
help them solve the mystery.
2&3. How did one bullet kill 20 million
- Map work
people?
- Role play
- Causation debate
19/09/14
- Newspaper article on the spark of
26/09/14
World War One.
4. Why did so many people enlist to fight - Recruitment posters
- Group work to find the common
in the First World War?
- Official records of recruitment
characteristics of recruitment posters.
provided by MHC
- Students answer questions on the
3/10/14
posters.
- Students create a poster.
5. School visit to Maidenhead Heritage Centre. The following artefacts were looked at, which will drive the future focus on out
sessions.
22/10/14
6. How were children’s lives affected by
- Evacuation photos
- What can we learn from pictures and
the First World War?
- Evacuee stories/ diary entries
written sources?
- Evacuee name tags
- Circle map
24/10/14
- Extended writing – how were
children’s lives affected by WW1?
7. Did the First World War improve the
- Personal stories of Maidenhead nurses - What can we learn from pictures and
lives of women?
and factory workers, provided by MHC
written sources?
- Circle map
7/11/14
- Extended writing – how were women’s
lives affected by WW1?
8. Visit from Maidenhead Heritage Centre, workshop led by Virginia (museum curator).
14/11/14
9. Did the First World War improve the
- Personal stories of Maidenhead nurses
What can we learn from pictures and
lives of women?
and factory workers, provided by MHC
written sources?
- Circle map
21/11/14
- Extended writing – how were women’s
lives affected by WW1?
10. Trench warfare
- Trench art, provided by MHC
40 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
28/11/14
11. Rationing and DORA
- Ration and recipe books, provided by
MHC.
5/12/14
13. Planning for extended writing
All previous objects to be used for drive
student planning
12/12/14
14. Extended writing - How were the lives of people on the Home Front affected by the outbreak of the First World War?
Wexham School
Topic
Lesson Title
Lesson
Objectives
Resources
Differentiation
Learning Aims:
 To develop an understanding of how lives were affected by the war.
 To evaluate how people’s lives were affected by WW1.
 To create a workshop for students outside the school community.
How did WW1 What is
1. To know
 Starter: Students will match long-term causes of
WW1 to their definition.
affect the
WW1?
what WW1 is.

Students will create a map of WW1 European
lives of people
alliances.
2.
To
in Britain?
 Students will complete a card-sort on the longunderstand
term effects of WW1. They will indicate if the
the main
cause is related to France, Britain or Russia.
events of
 Students will then learn about the assassination of
WW1.
Franz Ferdinand.
 Students will write a paragraph to explain what
the most important cause of WW1 was.
 Plenary: Students will write what went well and
even better if in green pen.
How did WW1 Why did
1. To know
 Starter: Students analyse a picture of people in
front of Buckingham Palace when the war was
affect the
people join
why people
announced in 1914.
lives of people the army?
joined the
 Students are taught about the different reasons
in Britain?
army.
why men joined the army.

Students analyse different recruitment posters
2. To analyse
from WW1 and link it to the different motives.
propaganda
 Students create their own propaganda poster.
posters from
 Plenary: Students share their posters with the
WW1.
class.
 Artefact: Recruitment posters found online.
3. To create a
propaganda
poster to join
WW1.





How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
What was life
like in the
trenches?
1. To know
what life in
trenches were
like.
2. To



Starter: Students analyse a picture of soldiers in
the trenches and describe how they would feel in
that position.
Students watch two videos describing the
challenges faced by soldiers in WW1. During each
video they write down two video facts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvYIIuxh2kY

Sentence
starters for
writing a
paragraph.
Translations for
EAL students.
Students are
given a list of
things to include
in their poster
with examples
of recruitment
posters.
High ability
students will
need to explain
the reasoning
behind their
poster and how
that would
persuade men
to join the army
during the war.
Translations for
EAL students.
There will be a
list of things to
include in the
diary entry such
as rations, rats,
lice, diseases,
etc.
41 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
understand
how it
affected the
war effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyFCmwgCU
vU
 Students will read an information sheet from the
BBC website about trench conditions. This
information sheet will include first-hand accounts
about the trenches.
 Students will write a diary entry from the
perspective of a soldier living in the trenches and
describe the different conditions.
Plenary: Students will write in green pen what they did
well and even better if.


A writing frame
for low ability
students.
Translations for
EAL students.
Artefact: First-hand accounts about the trenches on
the BBC website.
How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
How did
people
communicate
during WW1?
1. To know
how soldiers
communicate
d with their
families.
2. To analyse
postcards
from WW1.





Starter: Students will create a spider diagram to
list the different ways we communicate today.
Read the information sheet on communication in
WW1.
Students will write a post card imagining they are
either in the trenches or on the home front.
Plenary: Students will peer-assess post cards.
Artefact: Postcards from the museum.

Starter: Students will analyse a picture from a
grocery store.
Students will look at food rationing cards and
books and answer questions to determine what
they believe the artefact is and why it was used.
Students will then read an information sheet
about rationing in the local area during WW1.
Students will watch a video to learn about
rationing with soldiers in the trenches.
Students will write a paragraph explaining how
rationing affected the home front and soldiers in
WW1.
Plenary: Students will summarise what they
learned in 10 words or less.
Artefact: Food rationing cards from the museum.

Starter: Students will look at a picture of Beatrice
Kay and guess what she did during WW1.
Explain to students that women replaced men
who had joined the army for the war.
Students will watch a video showing the different
roles women took to help with the WW1 war
effort.
Students will read an information sheet about
how many women worked in the war.
Students will write a paragraph to explain how
women contributed to the war effort.



Translations for
EAL students.
Sentence
starters for
different
perspectives.
Suggested
comments for
peerassessment.
3. To create a
postcard for a
soldier.
How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
What could
they eat?
1. To know
about food
rationing
during WW1.
2. To explain
how food
rationing
affected
people during
WW1.







How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
What did
women do in
WW1?
1. To know
how women
contributed to
the war effort
in WW1.

2. To
understand
how the role
of women









Sentence
starters for
writing tasks.
Writing frames
provided on
how to write a
PEE, PEEL and
PEEEL
paragraph.
Translations for
EAL students.
Extension:
students will
write about how
they would feel
if they were
limited in the
groceries they
could purchase
today.
Translations for
EAL students.
Sentence
starters for
writing tasks.
Writing frames
provided on
how to write a
PEE, PEEL and
PEEEL
paragraph.
42 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
changed in
WW1.


How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
ASSESSMENT
How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
Create a
workshop!


1. To create a
workshop on
one aspect of
WW1 that
you learned
about in this
unit.

Plenary: Students will write down 3 jobs women
were employed in during WW1, 2 things they
learned and 1 thing they are still wondering about.
Artefact: Photo album of a nurse from
Maidenhead called Beatrice Kay.
Students will answer the question: How did WW1
affect the lives of people in Britain?
They will use their knowledge about food
rationing, trenches, women and communication in
their answer.


Writing frame
for the essay.
Sentence
starters.
Students will create a workshop for Ditton Park
Academy students and the Maidenhead Heritage
Centre. One group will be chosen.
STAGE FOUR: EVALUATION
Review
Monitoring
Evaluation
Surveys
We will use surveys before and after
the unit to see if students have made
progress and understand what they
think museum learning is about.
Post-It Notes
At the end of a museum workshop or
lesson students will write down what
they learned, what surprised them and
what they enjoyed.
Quizzes
Students will complete a quiz at the
museum to test their knowledge of
World War One.
Written Assessment
We will have students write an essay
answering the question ‘How did World
War One affect the lives of people in
Britain?’ These essays will be marked to
43 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
check student progress.
Museum Workshop
Students will produce a museum
workshop to show their understanding
of a World War One topic.
Sign off
44 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix B: Student resources created
Ditton Park Academy - Student resources are available to download on Dropbox.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kpf9u2p26q9dyqv/AABq6PIKDnybTNoQGLNAGFjUa?dl=0
Wexham School
All lessons, hand-outs, resources and evaluation tools are available on Dropbox.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bq67khvkoqk6ya7/AACoXgamtZaHODBP1AHbPVE2a?dl=0
Maidenhead Heritage CentreDitton Park Worksheet
45 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Wexham worksheet
46 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix C: Evaluation tools
Ditton Park Academy
Museum Survey Analysis
Pre-museum visit survey
Which statement do you most agree with?
Statement
Museums are boring, but you
can learn lots from them.
Museums are not usually
relevant to what I am studying.
I would only ever visit a museum
on a school trip.
Museums are fun and you can
learn lots from them.
Tally
II
IIIII
IIIII
Post-museum visit survey
Which statement do you most agree with?
Statement
Museums are boring, but you can
learn lots from them.
Museums are not usually relevant
to what I am studying.
I would only ever visit a museum
on a school trip.
Museums are fun and you can
learn lots from them.
Tally
I
I
IIIIIIIIII
Pre-museum visit survey – Additional student comments
Statement
Learn things from museums
They are for old people
Not exciting / are boring
Generally negative
comment
Generally positive comment
Tally
III
III
IIIIIII
IIIIIIIII
III
47 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Post-museum visit survey – Additional student comments
Statement
Learn things from museums
They are fun or interesting
or cool
Generally negative
comment
Generally positive comment
Tally
III
IIIIIIII
0
IIIIIII
% O F ST U D E N T S O N O R A B OV E
TA R G E T I N H I STO RY F R O M
P R O J EC T C O H O RT
On end of year target
Above end of year target
% of students from project who above, on or
below the average grade of the rest of their
set
Above
Below
17%
33%
On
50%
Above
On
Below
48 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Average H/W grade of project
participannts when compared to the
average grade of their classmate
Above
Below
An excel table showing the progress of the students participating in the project over time
Wexham School
Assessment - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wxicejj3qoac8fj/AACiowv5evIvq9oAOhijRveqa?dl=0
Survey - https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GRZ9VGR
49 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix D: Scheme of Work for Ditton Park Academy
How were the lives of people on the Home Front affected by the outbreak of the First World War?
Lesson
2.
The personal stories of WW1 –
What happened to Private
Fenn?
Objects
Tasks
Official records of the death of Private
Fenn (enlistment document, enlistment
photo, Hayes newspaper article, death
certificate and finally the Menim Gate
letter and photo).
- A photograph of FF’s jacket
- A photo of the assassination of FF
-
Students circle map what they
already know about WW1.
Students complete investigation,
looking at 5 primary sources to
12/09/14
help them solve the mystery.
2&3. How did one bullet kill 20 million
- Map work
people?
- Role play
- Causation debate
19/09/14
- Newspaper article on the spark of
26/09/14
WW1.
4. Why did so many people enlist to fight - Recruitment posters
- Group work to find the common
in the First World War?
- Official records of recruitment
characteristics of recruitment posters.
provided by MHC
- Students answer questions on the
3/10/14
posters.
- Students create a poster.
5. School visit to Maidenhead Heritage Centre. The following artefacts were looked at, which will drive the future focus on out
sessions.
22/10/14
6. How were children’s lives affected by
- Evacuation photos
- What can we learn from pictures and
the First World War?
- Evacuee stories/ diary entries
written sources?
- Evacuee name tags
- Circle map
24/10/14
- Extended writing – how were
children’s lives affected by WW1?
7. Did the First World War improve the
- Personal stories of Maidenhead nurses - What can we learn from pictures and
lives of women?
and factory workers, provided by MHC
written sources?
- Circle map
7/11/14
- Extended writing – how were women’s
lives affected by WW1?
8. Visit from Maidenhead Heritage Centre, workshop led by Virginia (museum curator).
14/11/14
9. Did the First World War improve the
- Personal stories of Maidenhead nurses
What can we learn from pictures and
lives of women?
and factory workers, provided by MHC
written sources?
- Circle map
21/11/14
- Extended writing – how were women’s
lives affected by WW1?
10. Trench warfare
- Trench art, provided by MHC
28/11/14
11. Rationing and DORA
5/12/14
13. Planning for extended writing
- Ration and recipe books, provided by
MHC.
All previous objects to be used for drive
student planning
12/12/14
14. Extended writing - How were the lives of people on the Home Front affected by the outbreak of the First World War?
50 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix E: Scheme of Work for Wexham School
Topic
Lesson
Title
Lesson Objectives
Resources
Differentiation
Learning Aims:
 To develop an understanding of how lives were affected by the war.
 To evaluate how people’s lives were affected by World War One.
 To create a workshop for students outside the school community.
How did WW1 What is
1. To know what
 Starter: Students will match long-term causes of
WW1 to their definition.
affect the
the First
WW1 is.

Students will create a map of WW1 European
lives of people World
alliances.
2.
To
understand
in Britain?
War?
 Students will complete a card-sort on the longthe main events
term effects of WW1. They will indicate if the
of WW1.
cause is related to France, Britain or Russia.
 Students will then learn about the assassination of
Franz Ferdinand.
 Students will write a paragraph to explain what
the most important cause of WW1 was.
 Plenary: Students will write what went well and
even better if in green pen.
How did WW1 Why did
1. To know why
 Starter: Students analyse a picture of people in
front of Buckingham Palace when the war was
affect the
people
people joined the
announced in 1914.
lives of people join the
army.
 Students are taught about the different reasons
in Britain?
army?
why men joined the army.
2. To analyse

Students analyse different recruitment posters
propaganda
from WW1 and link it to the different motives.
posters from
 Students create their own propaganda poster.
WW1.
 Plenary: Students share their posters with the
class.
3. To create a
 Artefact: Recruitment posters found online.
propaganda
poster to join
WW1.





How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
What was
life like in
the
trenches?
1. To know what
life in trenches
were like.
2. To understand
how it affected
the war effort.

Starter: Students analyse a picture of soldiers in
the trenches and describe how they would feel in
that position.
 Students watch two videos describing the
challenges faced by soldiers in WW1. During each
video they write down two video facts.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvYIIuxh2kY
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyFCmwgCU
vU
 Students will read an information sheet from the
BBC website about trench conditions. This
information sheet will include first-hand accounts
about the trenches.
 Students will write a diary entry from the
perspective of a soldier living in the trenches and
describe the different conditions.
Plenary: Students will write in green pen what they did
well and even better if.



Sentence
starters for
writing a
paragraph.
Translations for
EAL students.
Students are
given a list of
things to include
in their poster
with examples
of recruitment
posters.
High ability
students will
need to explain
the reasoning
behind their
poster and how
that would
persuade men
to join the army
during the war.
Translations for
EAL students.
There will be a
list of things to
include in the
diary entry such
as rations, rats,
lice, diseases,
etc.
A writing frame
for low ability
students.
Translations for
EAL students.
51 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Artefact: First-hand accounts about the trenches on
the BBC website.
How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
How did
people
communic
ate during
WW1?
1. To know how
soldiers
communicated
with their
families.
2. To analyse
postcards from
WW1.





Starter: Students will create a spider diagram to
list the different ways we communicate today.
Read the information sheet on communication in
WW1.
Students will write a post card imagining they are
either in the trenches or on the home front.
Plenary: Students will peer-assess post cards.
Artefact: Postcards from the museum.

Starter: Students will analyse a picture from a
grocery store.
Students will look at food rationing cards and
books and answer questions to determine what
they believe the artefact is and why it was used.
Students will then read an information sheet
about rationing in the local area during WW1.
Students will watch a video to learn about
rationing with soldiers in the trenches.
Students will write a paragraph explaining how
rationing affected the home front and soldiers in
WW1.
Plenary: Students will summarise what they
learned in 10 words or less.
Artefact: Food rationing cards from the museum.

Starter: Students will look at a picture of Beatrice
Kay and guess what she did during WW1.
Explain to students that women replaced men
who had joined the army for the war.
Students will watch a video showing the different
roles women took to help with the WW1 war
effort.
Students will read an information sheet about
how many women worked in the war.
Students will write a paragraph to explain how
women contributed to the war effort.
Plenary: Students will write down 3 jobs women
were employed in during WW1, 2 things they
learned and 1 thing they are still wondering about.
Artefact: Photo album of a nurse from
Maidenhead called Beatrice Kay.
Students will answer the question: How did WW1
affect the lives of people in Britain?
They will use their knowledge about food
rationing, trenches, women and communication in
their answer.



Translations for
EAL students.
Sentence
starters for
different
perspectives.
Suggested
comments for
peerassessment.
3. To create a
postcard for a
soldier.
How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
What
could they
eat?
1. To know about
food rationing
during WW1.
2. To explain how
food rationing
affected people
during WW1.







How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
What did
women
do in
WW1?
1. To know how
women
contributed to
the war effort in
WW1.

2. To understand
how the role of
women changed
in WW1.






How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
ASSESSME
NT









Sentence
starters for
writing tasks.
Writing frames
provided on
how to write a
PEE, PEEL and
PEEEL
paragraph.
Translations for
EAL students.
Extension:
students will
write about how
they would feel
if they were
limited in the
groceries they
could purchase
today.
Translations for
EAL students.
Sentence
starters for
writing tasks.
Writing frames
provided on
how to write a
PEE, PEEL and
PEEEL
paragraph.
Writing frame
for the essay.
Sentence
starters.
52 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
How did WW1
affect the
lives of people
in Britain?
Create a
workshop
!
1. To create a
workshop on one
aspect of WW1
that you learned
about in this unit.

Students will create a workshop for Ditton Park
Academy students and the Maidenhead Heritage
Centre. One group will be chosen.
53 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix F: Structure of Maidenhead Heritage Centre session with Ditton Park Academy
2-2.10 Introduction as a group
2.10-2.20 Recruitment (10 mins)




Measure height
Boot polish
Discuss why men might volunteer
Read JG poem and look at Upson postcards
2.20 – 2.35 Women / war work (15 mins)




Discuss women’s rights
Discuss munitions work and handle badges
Divide into 2 groups and look at Dolly & Beatrice photos (print outs & touchscreen PC)
Task – tell story to other group in a creative way
2.35 – 2.50 Rationing (15 mins)




Discuss what foods were rationed etc
Look at ration books
Handle old money
Look at recipe books
2.50 – 3.05 Trench art/memorials


Explore trench art as a way of remembering the dead
Divide into 2 groups – look at Upson’s story and handle trench art – SWAP
3.05 – 3.20 Gallery exploration


Quiz worksheet
Postcards
3.20 – 3.30 Wrap up and evaluation

Ask students to fill out post-its for what they learnt, enjoyed and were inspired by
54 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix G: Structure of Maidenhead Heritage Centre session with Wexham School
10 – 10.20 Intro talk as a class covering remembrance/centenary, what they already know about
the war, what maidenhead was like at the start of the war, etc
Break into two groups of 15:
10.20 – 10.50
A) Explore the exhibition and do quiz - no postcards!
B) Get into 5 x groups of 3 and rotate around different object stations. E.g. rationing, mystery item,
postcards, trench art, badges. Groups have 6 minutes at each station to investigate their items and
fill out a worksheet answering key questions. VJ or BB will be on hand to float around the piles and
encourage investigation, and keep an eye on time.
10.50 – 11.20
Groups swap
11.20 – 11.50
Postcards: discuss postcards as a class and why they were important. Each student is given the
name of a character. Write their postcard from the perspective of the character - how would they
be thinking and feeling? Encourage students to investigate their character using the prompt on
their slip of paper.
11.50 – 12 noon
Wrap up, what have we learnt, evaluation post-its
- what learnt
- what enjoyed
- what surprised
55 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Appendix H: Objects used from the Maidenhead Heritage Centre
Item 1: A hot cross bun maker
Item 2: A pre-censored postcard
Item 3: Postcards made in France and sold to British soldiers
56 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Item 4: Food rationing books
Item 5: Pin from World War One
57 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?
Item 6: Trench Art
58 | Stronger Together project report: How did THE FIRST WORLD WAR affect the lives of people in Britain?