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Creating Aspirations
Since 2018, teams of students on the Museums and Galleries in Education MA at UCL have worked with a year 5 class throughout the academic year. The students, pupils and class teacher work together to decide on the direction of the project so every year has a different outcome.
Creating Aspirations is part of the UCL East schools programme managed by Emma Bryant.
2023-24
What makes a child friendly museum
This year, with the 27 pupils in Yew Class, a team of five MA students: Alana Surowiec, Alannah Gilmour, Andrea Yang, Freya Kehoe, and Grace Gui carried out research at the Grant and Petrie Museums on what makes a child friendly museum.
2021-2022
Creatures: Mythical and Real
This year, as part of the Creating Aspirations project, a team of six students: Abhiniti Ahuja, Hanyu Bao, Aurelia Chen, Haojing Huang, Wangshu Peng and Xiaoyu Zhang worked with Yew Class to create six unusual bookmarks for the Petrie and Grant Museum shops.
2020-2021
Discovering Ancient Sudan
A team of five students: Yifei He, Ditte Rasmussen, Celine Romano, Xinxin Wang and Yibing Zhao worked with Anna Garnett, the curator of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. They created virtual learning resources for Cedar Class to introduce them to the museum and the amazing ancient Sudanese objects in the collection. Due to the pandemic the children worked from home and could not visit UCL.
2019-2020
Grant Museum Takeover
Creating Aspirations project in 2019-2020 was run by students Maja Neske and Sara Rayment. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, a virtual Grant Museum Takeover replaced the real one originally planned for April 2020, and was the culmination of the year’s work. The pupils, aged 9-10, from Year 5 Yew class, wrote a trail with 13 objects. This became a virtual tour of the museum.
Project partners
George Mitchell School
George Mitchell School is a popular and successful All-through school, educating children across three phases: Early Years, Primary and Secondary. We have almost 1000 children from nursery age to Year 11. Being an all-through school gives us great opportunities to tailor our curriculum and provision to the needs of every child and we are continuously looking at ways to stretch and challenge our students.
Museums and Galleries in Education MA
The Museums and Galleries in Education MA combines academic study with professional educational practice in museums, galleries and heritage sites, looking at influential contemporary and historic theories in museum and gallery education.
UCL East
Building on UCL’s progressive history, positive impact and disruptive spirit, UCL East is the university campus of the future. We are bringing together UCL academics, students, local communities and industry to solve the biggest challenges affecting people’s lives and the planet – today and into the future.