Designed to enrich the curriculum for children and help elderly people recall memories, the scheme will run until December 2021 and will be available to some organisations for free courtesy of grant funding from the Children’s Trust and St Hilda’s Trust.
This support has also enabled the museum to add more boxes to its collection, all of which can be explored and booked via its recently upgraded website. Resources span from early civilisation to the 1960s, with themed boxes focusing on topics such as agriculture, fishing, railways, washday and the ‘Box that Must Not be Named’.
Each parcel contains a mix of original and replica artefacts alongside clothing reminiscent of the chosen era, books, CDs, DVDs, photographs and drawings.
A ‘Covid-secure quarantine system’ is in place to ensure every delivery is safe, with schools, childminders, regularly home-schooled pupils, and young people’s groups currently able to receive one free of charge. Loans boxes hired by other groups will cost £15 for a fortnight.
Hilary Waugh, a volunteer with the museum’s education team, says the loans boxes are a “tremendous resource” that provide a “great way of bringing history to life in an exciting way, allowing children to learn and use their imaginations in their own classrooms”.
More information on the programme can be found here.
