Overall, we are absolutely delighted with the Museum Project, and are deeply grateful to the HA for funding it. We are very proud of the final outcome, which felt highly professional in nature, despite being undertaken on something of a ‘shoestring' budget (some photographs are included below). The artefacts loaned were incredibly diverse and fascinating, ranging from banknotes from Germany during the Hyperinflation of the early 1920s, a signed edition of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, items from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, letters (signed by Baden Powell) relating to the death of a young soldier in the Boer War, Roman lamps, pottery, coins and a brooch, to a pop art scooter owned by Paul Weller. This naturally created an exhibition which was partial, as we could only cover the History elicited by the artefacts, but which, for visitors, was highly engaging, unique and thought-provoking. Artefacts were loosely organised into three themes: War & Conflict; Daily Life; The Power of Ideas. Within this, interpretation cards were provided, but visitors were equally encouraged to explore and consider the artefacts without reference to these cards. Younger visitors were encouraged to undertake ‘discovery trails' which invited them to consider objects in detail, and to make connections between items. As a result, while some visitors took a quick glance at the artefacts on a ‘whistle stop tour' most engaged in some depth with all or part of the exhibition, many feeding back that the personal nature of the artefacts helped them to connect with history that had previously felt distant.

The two events we held were very popular and certainly got the whole school community talking, and thinking, about history, historical interpretation and the role of evidence in not only understanding the past but also in how history will be interpreted in the future.

If we undertake the project again we would make some changes:

• Begin curatorial work later. It is not really necessary to spend two and a half terms curating the project and in fact this had the negative effect of losing momentum. We found a regular weekly meeting of 45 minutes not to be the best way of undertaking the curatorial work as it was difficult for pupils to make connections and fully extend their thinking. A smaller number of longer sessions were far more fruitful in delivering high quality interpretive outcomes.
• Provide more opportunities for researching and curating elements of the museum to whole classes, or a larger group of pupils on extra-curricular days. This would increase buy-in to the project, be more efficient, and also allow more pupils to benefit from the skills and understanding being developed.
• Make more use of links with external Museum and Archive partners. This was difficult due to reticence from the school management team to allow pupils time out of school on more than one occasion. We would consider weekend activities, ‘remote' contact via webchats etc. and inviting more visitors to come to us so as to really capitalise on the exciting opportunities created by such a partnership.
• Ensure that there was an administrative colleague assisting the teacher's organising the project. In the second half of the Summer Term this was more or less a full time job for two teachers, and really needed a larger project team.
• Consider opening the Museum at a different time of year so as to avoid the very busy end of term period where some pupils and teachers were not able to participate due to conflicting commitments.