Museums and Schools as Creative Partners: The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Elliot Foundation in partnership with AccessArt

Museums and Schools as Creative Partners: The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Elliot Foundation in partnership with AccessArt.

Monday 21st September 4:00–5:00pm BST.

Aimed at: Curriculum Leaders, Senior Leaders, Art Leads, EYFS, KS1 and KS2 Classroom Teachers, Artist Educators.

Free for AccessArt members and Non-Members.

Join us for an inspiring online CPD session for teachers and artist educators, where we'll explore how working with museums and galleries can spark creative teaching and bring rich cultural experiences into the classroom.

The session will share learning from a recent project with Early Years teachers across a Multi-Academy Trust. Working in partnership with the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, teachers spent time exploring the museum's collections and objects, discovering new ideas and approaches to teaching through first-hand experiences.

Rather than focusing solely on school visits, the project explored how museums can support teachers' own professional learning. You'll hear how these partnerships build confidence, inspire creative classroom practice, and help teachers make meaningful use of museum collections and resources with their pupils.

Using examples and reflections from the project, we'll share practical ways you can make use of museum collections and resources, even if visiting in person is difficult due to cost or distance.

We'll also look at how spending time with real museum objects can inspire learning in a way that's different from looking at images on a screen. We'll consider why these hands-on experiences are so valuable for both teachers and children, and how they can encourage curiosity, conversation, and creative-thinking in the classroom.

This session will be led by Dr Kate Noble, Strategic Lead for Participatory and Practitioner Research at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Anne Hopkins, Regional EYFS Lead for the Elliot Foundation. There will also be contributions from participating teachers across the Elliot Foundation Trust, and AccessArt will offer insight and practical tips on working with cultural and artistic source material.

This event is free to AccessArt Members and Non-Members. A recording will be made available to AccessArt Members a few days after the event.