August 2007 Heritage Feature: Pathways project - Nairn Museum

Many museums attempt to be inclusive in their outreach, but there are few that have managed to get as many participants as the recent Pathways project in liaison with Nairn Museum.

Five schools in the area were involved. Four primary schools with in the area; Auldearn, Cawdor, Rosebank and Millbank, produced content about their own area, with the two town schools splitting the town between them. Some Nairn Academy pupils provided research support for the primary pupils, including researching at Nairn museum.

Andrew Ferguson, Highland Council’s Museum Officer, explains the origin of the project.

“This project grew out of another Highland-wide project called Time Travellers designed to get school pupils interested in the history and heritage of their own areas. However, in Nairn, it was planned that rather then just creating artwork for the places they visited, the participants would create their own heritage trails.”

“The project was part funded by Highland 2007, the Scottish Arts Council, supported by the Highland Council. Alison McBain, Cultural Co-ordinator and myself lent a hand, but the head teachers also did a lot of co-ordinating. Fiona Barnes and her staff and volunteers at the museum were crucial too.”

The schools are producing booklets of information which will act as self-led tour guides. “They have been looking at significant buildings, and sites of buildings, but also the characters connected with the areas in their consideration.” said Andrew, “Local people and tourists can use these to get more information and appreciation about where they are.”

 “There will also be a DVD about the trails, but will also contain all the artwork generated by the pupils. This is the stuff in the exhibition, which will be up for the whole season, but they made much more than can go in the building.”

 The head teachers: Fiona Lewthwaite, Cawdor; Margaret Nesbitt, Auldearn; James Brander, Rosebank; Mrs Gordon at Nairn Academy, were full of praise both about the outcome and the process of the exhibition.

 Marion McKay, head teacher at Millbank Primary, said “The younger ones looked up to the older ones and aspired to their knowledge. The P7s who will be moving up to the new school got to extend their local historical awareness and their IT skills. There is a legacy of the computers, which will be put to good use. There are digital cameras too”

 “It’s been good for Nairn and also the young people to get involved with the museum. Hopefully they will come back with their parents later on. It will work for tourists too, if we get some publicity for it."

At the recent launch at Nairn Museum, Elizabeth McDonald, Provost of Nairn, described the initiative as a “tremendous project, great work bringing it all together”.

 While their peers were being edutained by Ray and Roy re-enacting on the theme of Nairn’s Jacobite past, some of the children explained their part in the exhibition.

 Heather and Warren from Rosebank said, “We did a lot about the castle, there is a house now where it was. It was on land owned by Lord Cawdor.” Becky and Eilidh, from Millbank, addressed a later period, “We found out about Dr. Grigor, and what he did for the town. He’s the man in the statue outside the museum. He made the town more popular. It was just really really small before he made it built up.” Neil and Claire from Auldearn, were even more up to date with their focus, “We found out about the prisoners of war, during the war, working on the farms.”

 The senior pupils from Nairn Academy, Eilidh Forsyth, Laura Mitchell and Jamie Halliwell, had their own reasons for participating. “We volunteered for this, because we all wanted to do advanced level History, but it wasn’t running. We decided that this would be good instead. Some of us want to do history at University.”

 “It was good working with the younger children, I looked forward to going to see them every week. We gave them things and encouraged them to find things out for themselves."

“I got them to do some acting while I filmed,” Said Eilidh. “ at the museum and the beach and different places. I gave them advice, but all the roleplay and re-enactments came from them. I was amazed, they were absolutely terrific.”

 “We did the primary research, went to see what the museum had and find what the kids could take from it. We took out a lot of irrelevant and confusing stuff. Then we let the teacher work it themselves or we worked with the teachers. We sort of made worksheets, things that they might encounter in the Academy.”

  “The children got more and more interested the further they got into this. They matured into it, and how well they dealt with things especially even the filming, and how well-behaved they were.”

 It also gave transferable learning benefits for the senior students. “We would do it again. We would have it a bit more structured, we had to use our own initiative lots of the time. There were points we could have been given more to do, but this will look great on our CVs.!”

 All-in-all a great project with benefits all round. The exhibition is on until the end of the season and is well worth a visit, for some of the most innovative museum content in the Highlands and Islands.