Take One... Totem Pole

Take One... Totem Pole is a highly successful primary school project which has been running at the Pitt Rivers Museum for the last year.  It is part of the National Gallery's Take One... brand which encourages schools to take one picture or object, and use it as a springboard for pupils' critical and creative thinking.  Pupils are challenged to find out the story of the 11.36m high totem pole in the Museum.

Totem Pole 1901.39.1  © Pitt Rivers Museum

                











The philosophy behind the project is that an entire school takes the object as a focus for their curriculum planning, ideally leading to a celebratory whole school event.  This year we have worked with West Oxford Community Primary School, St Swithuns CE Primary School, Cholsey Primary School and Bishop Carpenter CE Primary School.  The project is supported by a set of Teacher Notes and whole staff INSET is offered.

Art display at West Oxford Primary School © Pitt Rivers Museum

During the summer West Oxford Community Primary School made Take One... Totem Pole the focus of their art week. Every single class visited the Museum for a 75 minute taught session to experience the totem pole and find out more about it.  Pupils discovered that the totem pole comes from Haida Gwaii, a group of islands off the North-West coast of Canada.  They found out more about the traditions of the Haida people, and handled a variety of their objects from deer-hoof rattles to carved paddles.  They also heard about the stories linked to the totem pole and about the mischievous raven!  Back at school each class took a different creative response such as making raven masks or sewing button blankets. These artworks were displayed at a week long exhibition to which parents and the local community were invited.

Haida-inspired button blanket © Pitt Rivers Museum

Raven Masks © Pitt Rivers Museum

At the start of September St Swithuns C of E Primary School, Kennington, took part in Take One... Totem Pole involving just under 400 pupils in a 3 week project.  This culminated in an open afternoon for parents in which they could see all the childrens' creative responses.  There were totem poles lining the corridors made from all sorts of materials!

Totem pole at St Swithuns
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Nursery Class totem pole at St Swithuns
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Totem poles made from Pringle containers!
© Pitt Rivers Museum

If you are interested in participating in Take One... Totem Pole please contact Becca McVean at education@prm.ox.ac.uk

Watch out for the new Take One Object which will be revealed in January 2016....

Pop-up Pitt Rivers

The Pitt Rivers outreach programme is part of the Need / Make / Use project. Between 2013 and 2017 we are taking the Pitt-Rivers ‘experience’ to events, fetes and festivals in and around Oxfordshire. Our aim is to reach out to communities that may not have had the opportunity to visit the Museum, so they can engage with the collections in new ways through handling museum objects, craft activities and workshops.

So far in 2015 we’ve been lucky enough to attend Abingdon Fun in the Park in the Abbey Grounds and Florence Park Festival in June and Salisbury’s Festival of Archaeology in July.

Pitt Rivers pop-up tent at Abingdon's Fun in the Park in June © Pitt Rivers Museum

Inside our beautifully decorated tent we have a selection of intriguing museum handling objects on display from around the world to spark people’s curiosity and encourage conversation. The great thing about museum handling objects is that people can pick them up, feel the materials and even give them a sniff!

One of our favourite ‘smelling’ objects is this Kenyan milk gourd, made from a calabash (a type of vegetable), which has been cleaned and dried in the sun until it becomes hard and watertight. Its distinctive smell comes from a blend of milk, cows blood and ash, providing the local Maasai herdsmen with their staple food and all their protein and caloric needs in a convenient portable ‘lunchbox’. These gourds were treasured, mended when broken and used for many years.

Kenyan Maasai gourd from the education handling collection © Pitt Rivers Museum

As always our pop-up tent also features a selection of free family friendly craft activities relating to the museum’s collections and some of the handling objects on display. This summer we’ve had fun making porcupine fish helmets, fish scale breastplates, mini Zulu shields, feather headdresses, drum shakers and more!

 Porcupine fish helmet activity & replica porcupine
fish helmet from the education handling collection. © Pitt Rivers Museum

At Salisbury Festival of archaeology, emulating a fish-scale
breastplate from Sarawak © Pitt Rivers Museum

Children wearing their porcupine fish helmets, 
and pretending to be one! © Pitt Rivers Museum

This August, look out for our tent in Witney’s Marriotts Walk shopping centre (Wed 19th) and the next Oxfordshire Play Day event in Wallingford (Wednesday 12th)!

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…