Our learning sessions are grouped into the three themes below, exploring different aspects of local life. We deliver learning through storytelling, group focus sessions, role play, creative content such as craft and drawing, and museum trails.
Each session is designed for a particular key stage, but can be adapted for any age group. Find out more about each session by clicking on a theme!
To book or get more information, email info@wycombemuseum.org.
Town & Country
Exploring the industry and activity of High Wycombe and the surrounding area. Includes stories of our local industries: chairs, lace-making and the history of local sanitation.
Sessions will include learning about local transport, working people and their families and how people used to live.
Sessions delivered at the Museum.
Time Travellers
How have wider cultural movements changed Wycombe? Each session can be adapted according to your curriculum and key stage.
Time Travellers sessions can also be linked with an Explorer Box loan for independent discovery in school.
Sessions delivered at the Museum or in your school.
Fun & Games
From toys and teddies, fairgrounds, festivals, sport and dancing, over the years the people of Wycombe have shown they know how to have fun!
These sessions explore sport, leisure, play and the history of fairs in Wycombe.
Sessions delivered at the Museum.
Understanding the Chilterns
As part of the Chalk, Cherries, Chairs Project, between 2021-24 we are working in partnership with Amersham Museum to deliver the Understanding the Central Chilterns project, supported by the Heritage Fund and the Ernest Cook Trust. The project will help teach children how the Chiltern’s natural resources have supported local industry and communities and impacted on the location, type and development of settlements over human history.
Town & Country
Exploring the industry and activity of High Wycombe and the surrounding area. Includes stories of our local industries: chairs, lace-making and the history of local sanitation.
Sessions will include learning about local transport, working people and their families and how people used to live.
Sessions delivered at the Museum.
Bodgers & Bottomers
Best for: ♦ KS1 ♦ KS2 ♦ KS3
In this session we’ll explore together:
- When, how and why did Wycombe become a world centre of the furniture industry?
- Who made the furniture, and where?
- What was like life for the workers?
- Would you like to be a chair designer?
We’ll use the museum’s chair and woodworking collections to reinforce our learning journey.Â
The Ruff Stuff: The Story of Lace in Wycombe
Best for: ♦ KS1 ♦ KS2 ♦ KS3
In this session we’ll explore together
- How was lace made and who made it?
- How did it reach the lace markets?
- How was linked to social status and education for both the workers and the wearers?
- What was it used for and what did it feel like to wear?
We’ll use the museum’s art and lace collection to reinforce our learning journey.
What’s that smell? Sanitation and Hygiene in Wycombe
Best for: ♦ KS2 ♦ KS3
From the Tudors to the Victorians, we’ll wade through the streets and sewers of Wycombe to see how people dealt with waste through time.
In this session we’ll explore together:
- Rubbish disposal, Tudor style
- Washing bodies and clothes: How did people keep clean through the years?
- Cleanliness is next to Godliness: Victorian sanitation
- The Silent Highwayman: Sanitation and illness, and how they are linked
Time Travellers
This is an adaptable programme exploring global historical themes, based on the impact that wider cultural movements had on Wycombe and its development. These may be delivered according to your curriculum for the term and can be adapted to span a broad range of curriculum goals. They also link to our Explorer boxes for independent discovery in school.
Each session will involve role play, story telling and crafts and be linked to a visit to the Wycombe in 10 Objects display in the museum to reinforce our learning.
Sessions can be delivered in the Museum or in your school.
Session options include:
-
- Iron Age Tales
- The Romans are coming!
- Are you a Saxon or a Norman?
- Medieval Mill Town: Wycombe in the Middle Ages
- We are not amused: Victorian Wycombe
- Wartime Wycombe
Fun & Games
From toys and teddies, fairgrounds, festivals, sport and dancing, over the years the people of Wycombe have shown they know how to have fun! These sessions explore sport, leisure, play and the history of fairs in Wycombe.
Sessions delivered at the Museum.
A Chair for Baby Bear
Best for: ♦ Eary Years ♦ Foundation Stage
Based on a retake of the Goldilocks story, we’ll explore chairs and chairmaking with our younger audiences.
Take a Toy
Best for: ♦ KS1 ♦ KS2
What opportunities did Wycombe children (and their parents) have to play and relax together? What toys did they enjoy?
How do we make and use our own historical toys?
Wycombe at Play
Best for: ♦ KS3
In this focused session we’ll look at the opportunities people of Wycombe have enjoyed to take part in sport and leisure, and how this was linked to municipality and local government in the town.
Fairground Attraction
Best for: ♦ KS2 ♦ KS3
Fairs were so much more than fast rides and flashing lights in history: here we’ll explore what they meant and how the concept of the fair changed over time.
Understanding the Central Chilterns
As part of the Chalk, Cherries, Chairs Project, between 2021-24 we are working in partnership with Amersham Museum to deliver the Understanding the Central Chilterns project, supported by the Heritage Fund and the Ernest Cook Trust. The project will help teach children how the Chiltern’s natural resources have supported local industry and communities and impacted on the location, type and development of settlements over human history.
We can offer:
• FREE guided tour for your class, to get children learning outside in their local landscape (locations limited)
• FREE museum loan boxes (Covid secure) for use in your classroom
If you know a school that is interested in getting involved, please get in touch via info@wycombemuseum.org, telling us your year group, topic and the term that you are studying the topic.
