Welcome!

Welcome to our new Education Blog! We will use this space to let you know about the diverse activities we run for lots of different audiences.
 A good starting place must be introducing the team, so here goes:

Left to right: Salma Caller, Andy McLellan, Simone Dogherty,
Maya Herbolzheimer, Shirley Careford, Becca McVean
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Andy McLellan, Head of Education, leads the department, provides the vision, and goes to lots of meetings. He is particularly interested in film projects and has worked with teenagers in care, schools and community groups. He arrived at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 2000 to start up the Education Team, which now encompasses seven staff.

There are Education Officers for different audience groups. Salma Caller works with Adults, Secondary Schools and Communities. She draws on her background as an artist and having travelled widely to help interpret objects to this wide range of audiences. Becca McVean works with Primary Schools, utilising her skills as a trained English teacher, and Simone Dogherty enchants families with her cheerful smile and demon design skills.

We are lucky enough to have a Music Education Officer, Isabelle Carré, who delivers specialist projects and workshops and can often be seen playing giant African xylophones, Indonesian gamelans or Korean drums.

Isabelle Carré introduces primary school pupils to giant
Ugandan xylophone in the African Music session © Pitt Rivers Museum

Maya Herbolzheimer is the only full-time member of the Education Team and works as an Activities and Outreach officer for the HLF-funded VERVE: Need Make Use project. She organises outreach activities in the ‘pop-up’ Pitt Rivers tent around Oxfordshire, and runs events in the Museum such as workshops, demonstrations and evening events for adult audiences.

Our long-suffering Joint Bookings Officer, Shirley Careford, co-ordinates visitor bookings across the Oxford UniversityMuseum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers, and manages the Visitor Centre. She’ll always try to sort out your problem but cross her at your peril, particularly when Tottenham Hotspur has lost.

So now the niceties of introductions are over, you’ll be hearing from us over the next few months. From the daily grind to the sublime heights of project work. Keep reading…