RCM Museum launches Teacher Ambassador Programme

Monday 19 December 2016

The RCM Museum has launched a professional learning community to build brand-new, collections-based learning and outreach programmes and resources for schools.

The Teacher Ambassador programme will run throughout the RCM Museum’s redevelopment project, giving 16 teachers and more than 240 children the opportunity to learn about the Royal College of Music’s world-renowned heritage and to work with RCM musicians.

The Ambassadors will learn about best practice for using museums and collections to support student learning in schools; help to develop and share new resources; act as liaisons between the RCM Museum and their school community; and pilot and test new material with their classes throughout the year. This collaborative approach will enable the RCM Museum to create high-quality learning resources and programmes for schools supporting different strands of the National Curriculum.

In 2017 the RCM Museum will be working with teachers and students from Hammersmith Academy, Willcocks Nursery School, The Bridge Alternative Provision, College Park School, and St Thomas’s C. E. Primary School, with more teachers and schools to join in the coming years.

During the launch event the Teacher Ambassadors heard from Curator of the RCM Museum Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, enjoyed a baroque flute and theorbo performance by RCM musicians and were given a unique opportunity to study the world’s earliest surviving guitar up close (pictured below).

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Lydia Cracknell, the RCM Museum’s Learning and Engagement Officer, said: ‘This is an amazing opportunity to share expertise and create really useful resources. By working directly with teachers we aim to maximise the teaching potential of the collection for students in both a school and museum environment.’

The Teacher Ambassador programme forms part of the Heritage Lottery Funded project to redevelop the Royal College of Music Museum.