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The Ragged School Museum in East London has developed Polly's Story
as part of its schools programme. The project aims to develop the
language skills of children in reception and key stage one, through
storytelling and rhymes. The story sessions take place in the East
End Kitchen, a reconstruction of a kitchen typical of the local
area around 100 years ago. The children learn about the kitchen
through the story of Polly, a girl who might have lived in the house
it was part of. Before the storytelling itself, there is a chance
to talk about the objects that the children can see - for example,
they look at the kettle and the washing equipment and discuss how
they are like and unlike the modern equivalents. Three of the children
are chosen to play Polly's older brother and sisters in the story:
they are given an item of costume and allowed to sit in a special
chair.
The story follows Polly's life for four days when her mother goes
away and Polly has to do a different household job each day, using
the items in the kitchen. The children join in with rhymes and actions
to accompany each job, and with the rhyme for the end of each day
when the family comes home for tea. At the end of the four days
Polly's mum arrives with a surprise - a new baby. After the story
there is more time for questions and discussion, and the class teacher
can choose children to go up and act out the jobs that Polly had
to do.
The museum can also provide a "loan box" for the school
to use before or after the visit, containing replica and real museum
artefacts (like the kettle and the iron); pictures of the kitchen
and the objects from it, together with the words that go with them;
"feely bags" that contain objects for the children to
identify by touch; suggestions for preparation and follow-up activities;
and a tape of all the rhymes used in Polly's story. The museum is
looking into a way of making the box smaller to make it easier to
transport.
Since around 97% of the children at the three schools closest to
the museum do not speak English at home, this project gives them
the opportunity to practise their use of language in a creative
and stimulating way. Polly's story is highly structured, with a
lot of repetition and miming. This appeals to young children and
helps reinforce the new vocabulary: mostly everyday words but in
a setting which captures children's imagination. They are able to
make links from the setting to their own lives, because in a way
it is familiar, but it also makes a leap to something new to them.
The museum staff also judge that handling the objects is helpful
and exciting for the children. The links that the museum already
had with the community helped it to develop the project: it was
planned in conjunction with Poplar Education Action Zone and the
London Museums Agency, now called Archives, Libraries and Museums
(ALM) London.
The Ragged School Museum has also run a Reading
Is Fundamental, UK (RIF) project based on Polly's story. This
involved two Year 1 classes at a local school. During the RIF project
the children came to the museum for a "Polly visit", followed
by three book-giving events throughout the year, both at the museum
and at the school. Activities based on Polly's story were planned
for these events, such as making Polly picture books and a cardboard
theatre of the kind used in Victorian times. Parents were encouraged
by the school and museum to join their children for these sessions.
Some of the parents were already used to coming into the school
for maths workshops, so this was a new way to encourage them to
come along and support their children's learning; on the other hand,
some local children were already fans of the museum and visit it
on their own in school holidays, so the museum wished to attract
their parents as well.
Polly's story was originally funded by a Department of Culture,
Media and Sport/London Museums Agency programme called Wonderful
Things. This funding was generous enough in the development stage
to allow for supply teaching cover, which meant that the museum
could work with teachers for a whole day at a time to develop the
project - which is another reason that staff give for the project's
success. It is now funded by the Garfield Weston Foundation and
other charitable trusts.
Teachers complete an evaluation form for each session, and the project
as a whole is currently being evaluated. An assessment by Wonderful
Things, and feedback from teachers, suggest that the project is
having a big impact on children, and the children who have English
as an additional language particularly benefit. One class is still
talking about their visit and writing stories based on it two years
later. Children's questions after the sessions also show that they
are grasping the concepts introduced.
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