Stornoway primary teacher, Mairi MacIver and her pupils, along with members of the Heritage Education Forum (HEF) will demonstrate how teachers and pupils can make Heritage work for them to deliver the Curriculum for Excellence. A prime example is Mairi's recent interdisciplinary project, which started with an iron railing and led pupils to an exciting, creative exploration of the development of their own town since Victorian times. Maps, photographs, documents, museum objects, local historic buildings and people were all investigated to build up pupils' understanding of their local environment, which they interpreted visually to create a display for the local museum. This display forms one element of a new exhibition celebrating Stornoway's magnificent cast ironwork, and has since been used as the focus for a series of workshops involving the whole community. Engagement with Heritage widens horizons and offers unique opportunities to teachers and pupils to discover, experience and interact with their history, culture and environment. It provides scope for choice, challenge, enjoyment and personal development. Representatives from the museums, libraries, archives, buildings and environment agencies across Scotland, in HEF are geared up to support innovative and experiential learning as championed by Curriculum for Excellence. The extensive education work done by those agencies encourages participative and cross-curricular projects as well as supporting a range of individual subjects. At this session, you will find out what members of HEF can do for you and how to contact them, either to use resources already available or to develop collaborative projects. |