Dorset County Museum

These can take place either at Dorset County Museum or as outreach visits. We provide a consistent, integrated and high quality service for groups. All our sessions are participatory and focus on building skills for learning. We offer learning sessions on the following, but are very keen to extend our offer by working with you on your project ideas.

• Victorians Key stages 1 - 3
• Rocks, Fossils and Dinosaurs Key stages 1 - 3
• Jurassic Coast Key stages 3 - 5
• Archaeology Key stages 1 - 4 
• Iron Age Life Key stages 1 - 4
• Roman Key stages 1 - 3
• Roman and Iron Age Key stages 1 - 3
• Smuggling Key stages 1 - 2
• Thomas Hardy Key stages 2 - 4 and post 16 students
• Temporary Exhibition workshops, which will be advertised separately . All Key stages

 

NEW NEW NEW

Victorians  Key stages 1, 2 and 3

Discover what life was like for a child in Victorian Dorset. Most children, if not at school, worked the land and our new Village Dorset Gallery is a recreation of domestic, agricultural and industrial life in Dorset. We emphasise the local aspects of life in Victorian times, using local events and stories.

•Hands On Workshop that allows your pupils to  experience life as a child of  a farm labouring family including washing clothes, cleaning and getting ready for the Hiring Fair
•Use the handling collection of Victorian artefacts and, through role play, discover how the cholera epidemic started in Dorchester
•Experience life in William Barnes' school
•Discover the huge range of tasks that Dorset children undertook both in and out of the home; agricultural and industrial jobs and the treatment of child prisonners.
•Artefacts include the inventive Moule’s Earth Closet, Dolls house,Noah’s Ark, an early washing machine and vacuum cleaner

Jurassic Coast

Rocks, Fossils and Dinosaurs   Key stages1, 2 and 3

By visiting the Jurassic Coast Gallery you can discover the secrets of the creatures that lived long ago.

• Come and meet the famousWeymouth Bay  Pliosaur with 'the world's biggest bite'.
• Excavate a fantastic two metre Ichthyosaur
• Make fossils to take back to school
• Use ‘feely bags’ to identify the different real fossils
• Listen  to a storyteller tell of the saving of the dinosaurs or the floklore of fossils,
• Discover  the different uses for rocks and stone throughout history in our photo orienteering ‘Lets Rock’ trail, drawing and painting.
• This project can be offered in partnership with Charmouth Heritage Centre.

Key stages 3, 4 and 5

The Jurassic Coast Gallery is a great place to teach Science at KS3, 4 and 5; it is full of rocks and fossils that help to understand the environments in which rock layers were deposited. The gallery introduces the concept of ‘Deep Time’ and allows students to follow in the footsteps of Mary Anning. Museum staff are available to give talks and tours for your students.

Archaeology  

The Archaeology Gallery has thousands of objects excavated from barrows, settlements, temples and hillforts in Dorset. See Neolithic jade axe-heads, Bronze Age gold ornaments, Iron Age skeletons and Roman mosaics. Use a handling collection of real artefacts and piece piece together the lives of people who lived and died in Dorset thousands of years ago. They will also use Discover more about  the recording techniques used by archaeologists or listen to talk about the work of an archaeologist.

Iron Age Life    Key stages 1, 2, 3 and 4

The Archaeology Gallery has a rich collection of material from the Iron Age, including the famous skeletons from Maiden Castle. Activities include piecing together skeletons (not real ones) and choosing artefacts they might have owned in their lifetime, investigating pot form and function, decorative arts and recording techniques.

Roman   Key stages 1, 2 and 3

The Dorchester Gallery and the Victorian Hall contain many Roman artefacts from mosaic pavements you can walk on to jewellery, ear scoops, glassware, coffins and weapons.

• Make your own mosaics or take rubbings of the real thing
• use the artefact handling collection to discover more about everyday life in Roman Britain
• Investigate life and death in Roman Dorchester.
• his session can include a guided visit to the Roman Town House in Dorchester, where you can see mosaics in situ, hypocausts, wells, walls and reconstructions. The Roman Town House is 10 minutes safe walk from Dorset County Museum.

Roman and Iron Age  Key stages 1, 2 and 3

Compare and contrast life in Dorset before and after the arrival of the Romans. Using the Archaeology Gallery, Dorchester Gallery and the Victorian Hall discover the changes to housing, clothes, jewellery, coins and pottery. How did the Romans bury their dead and did it differ from Iron Age practices? A fine handling collection of Iron Age and Roman artefacts will be used to discover more about how these two peoples lived in the past.

 

The Roman House   All key stages

The Roman Town House is only 10 minutes safe walk from Dorset County Museum and is a self contained site.

• Dorset County Museum has access to the INSIDE of the Roman Town House, with its mosaics and hypocaust . (There is no other access other than via the Museum)
• Your pupils can stand where Romano British children may have played, see the beautiful mosaics close up and experience the atmosphere within a real building of the third century AD.
• We can also provide a photo orienteering exercise for the outside of the building.
• For a longer sesion we can offer workshops on mosiacs,  writing with wax tabletsor storytelling.
• A visit to the Town House can be part of a Roman session at the Museum or be booked independently.

 

Smuggling   Key stages 1 and 2

Find out about smugglers, their cargoes, routes and adventures using a variety of sources. In the galleries at Dorset County Museum you will have access to artefacts used by smugglers and our handling collection to help you plan a ‘smuggling run’. Where will you land? How will you evade the Riding Officers? Which is the quickest route from the beaches to the ‘safe house’? What will happen if you are discovered? Hear the tales of local smugglers and the tricks of the trade, including 'Slippery Rogers'.

NEW NEW NEW

Victorians  Key stages 1, 2 and 3

Discover what life was like for a child in Victorian Dorset. Most children, if not at school, worked the land and our new Village Dorset Gallery is a recreation of Domestic, Agricultural and Industrial life in Dorset. We emphasise the local aspects of life in Victorian times, using local events and stories.

• Hands OnWorkshop that allows your pupils to  experience life as a child of  a farm labourring family including washing clothes, cleaning and getting ready for the Hiring Fair
• Use the handling collection of Victorian artefacts and through role play discover how the cholera epidemic startedin Dorchester
• Experience life in William Barnes' school
• Discover the huge range of tasks that Dorset childrten undertook both in and out of the home; agricultural and industrial jobs and the treatrment of child prisonners.
• Artefacts include the inventiveMoule’s Earth Closet, Dolls house,Noah’s Ark, an early washing machine and Vacuum cleaner

Thomas Hardy

Key stages 2, 3, 4 and post 16 students

We offer sessions on Hardy, his novels, poems and context studies. The Writer’s Gallery houses not only Thomas Hardy’s study, including the pens he used to write novels such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but also letters, transcripts, and material relating to the Hardy Players' dramatic adaptations of his work. A Thomas Hardy session could comprise placing the novel or poems in context, dialect and characterisation, artefacts relating to the novels and a guide to the gallery.

Temporary Exhibition Workshops which will be advertised separately

All Key stages

Our exhibition programme is varied and includes photography, visual art forms, pottery, collage and castles. Workshops for schools will be advertised separately. Please see Temporary Exhibitions for details of forthcoming exhibitions