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By Christopher Prior, Danny Reynolds and Martin Blenkinsop on

Teachers on track

Three student teachers share their experiences of their Settings Outside of School placement at the museum.

Hi! We’re three aspiring teachers from York St John University and we spent a week behind the scenes at the National Railway Museum’s learning department so that we could get a better understanding of learning outside schools. Our goal for the week was to take a good look at how children learn at the museum. We’ve done all sorts towards that this week: observed the explainers in their natural habitats, interviewed the higher-ups in the department, seen school groups doing workshops, and even taken part in some of those activities ourselves! We figured that to give you a better idea of how our week went we’d all tell you a little about our favourite thing from it!

Three trainee teachers

Hello! I’m Chris, and I have had an absolutely brilliant week so far, and although I have done absolutely loads of awesome things one stands out to me. This was when I got the opportunity, along with Danny and Martin of course, to take part in some explainer training with Team Leader Alan. We were given some really obscure artefacts, and I mean really obscure, and the one of us that was told what the artefact was had to question the other two to lead them as close to guessing what it was. I had to get them to try and work out what a cylindrical metal tin with some strange disks in was; and I’ll leave you guessing just the same so that you can try and find it here!

Three trainee teachers 2

Hi there, my name is Martin and this week has been a fantastic learning experience. Throughout this week I have been observing a wide variety of the workshops the museum has to offer. One of my favourite workshop was Stephenson’s Rocket. The main focus of the workshop was the competition held where Rocket had won. The children loved dressing up as the characters involved which includes a ridiculously tall top hat. The other workshops I have seen were Building Bridges where the children became a bridge and Clickety Clack which was full of sounds you might hear on a train journey from London to Glasgow.

Three trainee teachers 3

Hi, I’m Danny and I have had a great experience during this placement week. I have witnessed and engaged in some fantastic learning opportunities which has helped me to develop my own skills and take in what it is like to see children learning outside of the classroom. We got the chance to wander around the museum and plan from a teacher’s point of view, I found this one of the most valuable experiences about my week as I was able to think about the planning a teacher has to go through to plan a school trip.

We all agree that we can’t wait to come back in May! Thank you for providing us with a fantastic experience!

For more information on our learning activities or to book a free school visit please click here.

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