Museums Partnership Reading: Youth Strategy 2019–2022
We are happy to introduce our newly-published Museums Partnership Reading Youth Strategy.
For the last 6 months, we have been collaborating on a joint youth strategy between The Museum of English Rural Life and Reading Museum working in partnership. A small group across the two museums worked with heritage consultants Natalie Chambers and Jocelyn Goddard in a strategic planning process.
The Museums Partnership Reading Youth Strategy has been planned within the policy landscape of both Reading Borough Council and the University of Reading. Our Youth Strategy will enable us to reach out from a position of complementary strengths, to build and deepen engagement with children and young people.
It is a strategy with a broad scope:
- It represents two museums, working in partnership
- It aims to be sustainable, building on existing strengths and capacity
- It looks to the future, including stretch goals to embed ambition and aspiration
- Its target groups align with both Reading Borough Council and University of Reading policies
- It covers a wide age range: 0–24 years.
Schools sit at the heart of our strategy. Together our two museums have developed comprehensive museum learning work with children and young people, based on many years of experience. We have put schools at the centre of our shared plans, as the key to reaching out to children and young people across a range of diverse backgrounds. This model will be evaluated and disseminated for others to follow.
Our vision
- Every child and young person in Reading will benefit from Museums Partnership Reading through opportunities to: See, touch and understand the relevance of museum collections to their lives
- Participate in high quality age appropriate learning activities
- Enjoy safe and welcoming museum spaces
- Make their own creative contributions
Our aims
Our work with children and young people will:
- Be rooted in dialogue and consultation
- Integrate youth engagement into key MPR partnership projects
- Promote MPR’s existing services
- Renew and extend each museum’s offer for children and young people
- Follow the principles of access and diversity
- Include children and young people with most need
Our key strands of work
- Partnership working — within the MPR, with the British Museum, with local groups and services
- Improved, targeted marketing of the opportunities MPR offers for children and young people
- Work with local schools including those with high numbers of Pupil Premium students
- Arts-based projects with local partners, including Arts Award in schools
- Inclusive work with children and young people with Special Educational Needs
- Work with children and young people in the community — piloting new work and extending successful previous projects for ages 0–24 years
- Widening Participation projects to encourage young people to consider going to university
- Opportunities for work experience, including supported placements and internships
- Training and skills development for staff and volunteers
- A shared pool of freelancers, casual staff, artists and other specialists
- A dynamic online platform for young volunteers
- A Young People’s Manifesto
How we got here
As a National Portfolio Organisation, we aligned our strategy with the mission of Arts Council England: Great art and culture for everyone and its quality principles for working with young people:
- Striving for excellence and innovation
- Being authentic — by involving young people at all levels, consultation, participation, co-creation
- Being exciting, inspiring and engaging
- Ensuring a positive and inclusive experience
- Actively involving children and young people
- Enabling personal progression
We also underpinned our strategy with a best practice review and research into comparable work with children and young people. Information was gathered on:
- museums’ work with schools
- literacy projects in museums and galleries
- personalised study programmes
- working with looked after children
- collaboration with families and young people
- incentives for engaging young people
- youth panels
- digital learning projects
- volunteering by young people in a heritage context
- museum loans to schools
As the work of Museums Partnership Reading progresses, we now have a bank of examples of best practice to underpin further project planning.
Our Youth Strategy also aims to sit within the current policy context, both nationally and locally. In addition to Arts Council England’s mission, it aligns with the objectives of the Reading Cultural Education Partnership.
Relevant local strategies include:
- Strategic Priorities for Culture and Heritage 2015–2030
- Sustainable Community Strategy (2011)
- Child Poverty Strategy (Reading Borough Council)
- Museums and Special Collections Services, Learning and Student Engagement Strategy 2016–2018 (University of Reading).
Reading has a high proportion of children and young people, representing 20.3% of its total population. Of the school population, 49.4% belongs to an ethnic group other than White British, compared to 25% in England overall. An increasing proportion is bilingual, with 30% of pupils speaking English as an additional language and 150 first languages in the area. 28.4% of Reading pupils are eligible for the Pupil Premium, compared to 22.6% in the South-East and 29.5% for England.
Based on the policy and strategy rationale, research and in-depth discussion with project teams, the initial key audiences for our youth strategy will be:
Audience
Progression from Year 1–3
Year 1: Our programme begins with time to consolidate and sustain each museum’s current services for children and young people; develop partnership and implementation methods; explore and research potential; dialogue with schools; develop volunteering; strengthen networks and pilot projects.
Year 2: This year we will start to build on Year One, while retaining the work begun. We will respond to evaluation; dialogue with young people directly and begin dissemination, for example through conferences.
Year 3: By this year, we will be ready for cutting edge work with schools and young people; for example developing a co-curated exhibition, and a youth manifesto looking forward to the next 3 years.
What happens now?
A detailed action plan has been created, which acts as a working document, to be updated regularly, taking into account evaluation and feedback from activities, new opportunities and unforeseen challenges.
Staff at both museums will be developing new partnership work and trying out new ways of working together to meet shared aims. Dialogue, both internally, between museums and with external stakeholders, will be key to the successful implementation of the strategy. A process of review and reflection will enable the MPR to measure impact and to ensure that plans beyond the term of the strategy are based on evidence.
To find out more and get involved, contact:
Isabel Hughes, Head of Curatorial and Public Engagement, The Museum of English Rural Life
