Press Release

Derry City Council’s Heritage and Museum Service’s Education Programme

Tuesday 16th October 2007

An innovative education programme aimed at making the city’s local heritage accessible to young people, will be launched by the Mayor, Alderman Drew Thompson, at the Tower Museum, tomorrow, Wednesday, 17 October.

Speaking at the launch of Derry City Council’s Heritage and Museum Service Education Programme, the Mayor said a number of different education programmes were developed using a variety of skills to highlight the importance of heritage to young people.

Welcoming the programme, the Mayor said the Council was committed to preserving the city’s local history and heritage and to making it interesting and accessible to young people.

Margaret Edwards, Education Officer with the Heritage and Museum Service, said the education programme is specifically designed to meet the needs of the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum and the Republic of Ireland Curriculum, using a variety of key skills including communication, mathematics and ICT.

She explained: “Our programmes offer opportunities for connected learning and are ideally suited to the needs of various learning areas and include a series of key stage one, key stage two and key stage three programmes which cover a variety of areas. Among the projects included in key stage one are the Change over Time workshop which looks at how domestic life has changed over time and using handling objects or a transport workshop, available from January next year, which looks at the change in transport in the city and its impact on the environment using the Story of Derry exhibition at the Tower Museum. As part of key stage two and three stage studies, a range of exhibitions and trails are available including a Good Relations/Citizenship exhibition and workshop, Our Lives- Peoples Memories pf World War II and a Victorian Workhouse exhibition tour and workshop.”

Ms. Edwards added that the Heritage and Museum Service offers outreach sessions for schools on a limited basis. Booking is essential and charges apply. Among the programmes that can be delivered are the Museum in a Box project, the Armada Shipwreck handling session and Thinking Outside the Box workshop.

“We are confident that we are offering a wide and interesting range of exhibitions and workshops that are of interest to young people across the city and region. All of our venues including the Tower Museum, Workhouse Museum and Harbour Museum, are included in the education programme and we have specifically trained staff available to meet the needs of all students. This is a very exciting project for us and we are excited about bringing it forward and bringing history and heritage into the classroom of young people across the city and region,” she said.

A detailed education programme document is currently available, to view visit www.derrycity.gov.uk/museums. For further details contact museums@derrycity.gov.uk or 028 71 372411.

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