<<Group Guidelines comments from GEM jan 08.doc>>
Thanks to all of you who replied to me yesterday. It was one of those moments - I'd been out the previous day and just saw the agenda for this meeting and thought 'oh crumbs' - quite a big issue and no time to prepare!
We do already have clear information that goes out to teachers explaining our different sessions and the sites, a major issue is lack of capacity to develop new resources - with which I am sure you are familiar. Also there are the inevitable teachers who do no planning in advance of their visit.
We do encourage teachers to carry out a pre-visit, but these are not compulsory as we cannot cope with the demand that this would entail. We also provide resource packs to assist with pre-visit and post-visit work - but these are quite old now and are also only really suitable for local schools as they are quite big boxes. I'd love to offer in a digital form.
There are a few issues which we need to resolve:
* to ensure that the key staff involved have a common understanding of the needs of learning groups
* needing to update our website to support teachers planning visits, rather than relying on a series of separate leaflets and 'phone conversations
* having something in a written format that we can refer to - for internal training purposes if nothing else
* making sure information is consistent across our museums - potentially changing existing leaflets to incorporate new information rather than create a whole new piece of paper, therefore bamboozling teachers and creating more admin
* needing to have more resources for groups to use when they do visit! One of the groups who our front of house team find hardest to cope with is foreign language schools. This is purely because we do not support them in their visit at all - so with nothing to focus them and in some cases no translations, they whip around the site in a short period of time. Also the focus of their visit is more of a jolly in the first place.
Someone mentioned staff training and you are quite right - this is one of the issues. A recent suggestion has been to ask group leaders to wear a fluorescent vest whilst on-site so that they can be identified. This highlights a certain nervousness and apprehension, which I hope to tackle!
I am calling a meeting between myself, our front of house team at the site in question and our Visitor Services Officer - between us we hope to come up with something that fits everyone's needs.
Let me know if you want to see how things develop.
Thanks again.
Bryony
> Bryony Kelly
> Education Officer
> Museums and Records Service
> City Museum and Records Office
> Museum Road
> Portsmouth
> PO1 2LJ
>
> T: 023 9282 7261
> F: 023 9287 5276
> E: [log in to unmask]
> www.portsmouthmuseums.co.uk
> www.portsmouth.gov.uk
>
>
*****************************************************
This email is for the intended recipient(s) only.
If you have received this email due to an error in addressing, transmission or for any other reason, please reply to it and let the author know. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy or print it.
This email may be monitored, read, recorded and/or kept by Portsmouth City Council. Email monitoring and blocking software may be used.
*****************************************************
|